Flash flood warnings follow levee breach in Washington state

Dec 15 (Reuters) - A levee breach in Washington state following days of heavy rain led to a flash flood warning and evacuation orders, but authorities said on Monday that repairs were underway.

King County's director of emergency management Brendan McCluskey told the Seattle Times that repairs could take several hours and that officials were closely monitoring the Desimone Levee in Tukwila along the Green River, about five miles south of downtown Seattle, where a car-sized chunk of the levee was washed away by floodwaters.

Images showed workers using heavy equipment to drop large sandbags into the hole, working to keep it from growing.

Calls to McCluskey's office, along with that of the state Emergency Management Division, were not immediately returned.

The National Weather Service said its flood warning related to the levee failure would remain in effect until at least 9 p.m. (0500 GMT Tuesday).

The Washington National Guard said that it was sending Guard members to King County. The Guard has already been helping flood-impacted residents in the western part of the state over the weekend.

Authorities have been concerned about levee breaches for days around Washington state, as torrential downpours hit a wide swath of the Pacific Northwest.

The rains were spawned by a string of atmospheric river storms, vast airborne currents of dense moisture siphoned from the ocean, that swept inland over the Pacific Northwest, including parts of northern Idaho and western Montana, with upward of 20 inches of rain falling in some areas over the course of a week.