Hurricane residents call for flood prevention amid new storm warnings

HURRICANE — With another round of storms projected for southern Utah this weekend, Hurricane residents are bracing for impact, with the hope that officials will take measures to prevent yet another round of floods from entering homes.

"We should love it to rain down here," said lifetime Hurricane resident Steve Isom. "We should look forward to the rain. And now, every time it clouds up, everybody needs to sandbag. You can't live your life like that."

Floodwaters impacted around 130 homes in Hurricane last Thursday as waters from Gould Wash overflowed its banks. Many of those homeowners were dealing with flooded homes for the second time since August.

Isom is one of those residents. In fact, he said that he was just placing the last piece of furniture in his home following repairs and mitigation from the previous flood when the Aug. 14 storm hit.

"About two hours later, I looked out the window and here it came again," he said. "It came relatively quickly, and it came from the same direction as the previous flood did. And it was only a matter of maybe 10 to 15 minutes before we were pretty much flooded."

Isom said that during the flood in August, his retaining wall in his backyard, which he said is tiered, was able to keep the water from flowing into other yards. The second time, however, part of his wall collapsed, sending water into his neighbor's yard.

"It didn't take long for the water to get there," he said. "The flow was considerably heavier this time than it was in August."

KSL spoke to his neighbor Lance Clifford, who said he believes city officials neglected to properly mitigate the wash in August.

"After the first flood, which breached the side of the wash and came into our cul-de-sac, it probably put an additional two feet of sediment in the bottom of the wash," Clifford said. "It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that if the bottom of the wash is two feet higher and the top of the wash is still the same height, that it's going to flood much easier."

The area surrounding Gould Wash has been recognized as a high-risk flood zone for decades but hasn't had significant flooding since the early 1980s. Isom said he remembers that time, but also said he recalls the area having regular maintenance to prevent flooding.

"There's always that risk (of flooding), but I believe, to my understanding, the city was proactive and going through there with the heavy equipment and cleaning it out so water could flow through it," Isom said. "Was I aware (of possible flooding)? Absolutely."

Isom said that when he built his home over 20 years ago, he checked the flood maps to see if the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) designated it as a flood zone. He said it wasn't until the 2005 floods along the Santa Clara River took several homes that FEMA's maps changed the area to a flood plain. He said that's when he purchased flood insurance.

Even with insurance, Isom said that he, too, believes that city officials had an obligation to take measures to properly mitigate the area following the flood in August.

"Our city leaders are guys I've known my whole life. I love them," he said. "I know they love the city and the valley as much as I do. ... I asked the city what their plan was to fix what I see as two primary pitch points where the water escaped, and I didn't get any response. The prevailing attitude seemed to be that this was a 50-year flood and we've got 50 years before we have to worry about it again."

But it did happen again, and last Thursday, Mayor Clark Fawcett issued a Proclamation of Local Emergency. City officials noted in the statement that the flooding had damaged or affected bridges, culverts, public roadways and electrical power boxes, creating "public safety concerns."

Isom and Clifford both hope the city and other responsible municipalities will take things seriously so that this doesn't happen again — especially with another storm on deck.

"If I see some activity by the city to clean and mitigate those two or three pitch points in the next three or four days, my faith will be somewhat restored in city officials," Isom said. "I'm not placing blame on them. I don't want to do that. One of their responsibilities is to protect the citizens in their community. (I would be) just utterly shocked if this were to happen again and nothing was done. I would just have a really difficult time with that."

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