State of Emergency in Washington?

While some streams seem to be flowing fine, others aren't. Oregon lakes and reservoirs rely heavily on winter rain and snow pack. Both of which were way below normal this year. No one mismanaged anything. You can't stock pile anymore water than what's given to you. Most reservoirs in Oregon are for flood purposes or irrigation.
Two that come to mind are Detroit Reservoir and Green Peter reservoir. Both are for flood control. They both empty into secondary reservoirs. Detroit empties into Big Cliff reservoir which provides power and flood control. Green Peter empties into Foster reservoir which is also for flood control. While Big Cliff and Foster are mostly full, the two reservoirs that they rely on are severely low. The result of low snow pack and non existent winter rains.

You can spin anything, and you can call it what you want but a drought is a drought regardless of the water shortage. Had we had close to normal snow and rain this winter things would've been fine. Problem with predicting weather is you can't very easy. Detroit and Green Peter are nearly empty during the winter so when the heavy rains and snow melt occurs they can fill them all the while controlling the outflow thru Foster and Big Cliff. You can't leave them full all winter then expect to control flooding when you have more inflow than safe outflow.