HURRICANE, Utah (KUTV) — Neighbors along Gould Wash in Hurricane, Utah, are bracing for another round of possible flooding as steady rain continues to fall.
KUTV has been following the ongoing situation as people living near the wash face their third potential flood in as many months. Many homes now have sandbags in place after flooding on Oct. 22 left a trail of damage, with heavy rain expected through Monday.
Lance Clifford, a Hurricane resident, has been keeping a close eye on conditions after his home was affected.
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“Let’s get this straight. When you live in the desert, you don’t think about floods,” Clifford said. He added, “And I never thought that this little wash right here could be so powerful.”
Clifford described how the flooding was worse the second time.
“Unfortunately the second flood in our neighborhood was worse than the first flood,” he said. “It did not go into my backyard in the first flood. The second flood, it went into my backyard, filled it up with a foot and a half of water.” He said the flood broke through his neighbor’s block wall. “And it actually breached my next door neighbor’s block wall and collapsed it, which sent a four foot tidal wave into the neighbor’s house. It was awful,” Clifford said.
He also recalled that his neighbors had just finished repairs before the latest flood. “So my neighbors had just gotten done rebuilding from the first flood, literally two days before this flood happened, he had finished putting a new carpet in this whole house and a new sod in the front yard and new decorative rock,” Clifford said. “And then this flood came in and it was just in tears. It was heartbreaking to see. I just, I can’t, can’t believe that that happened.”
Stories like this are being heard throughout the neighborhood. Another resident, Joe Vandenberghe, described the scale of flooding around his home. “The water got high enough that it came to our front door,” Vandenberghe said. “It got all the way into our garage and then it flooded the backyard. We pumped about 100,000 gallons of water out of the backyard.”
Many in the community said support from neighbors and volunteers made a difference after the floods, with Hurricane High School students joining the effort to lay sandbags. “I’ll tell you what, the volunteers around here came out of the woodwork,” Vandenberghe said. “I mean, families with kids, women, men, came down and started to help. It was fantastic. We wouldn’t have got it done without them.”
As the heavy rain continues, Clifford described the anxiety of waiting. “I’m on edge. I can’t, I just, I’ve been coming out every hour and taking pictures,” he said. Clifford remains hopeful as the community waits out the storm. “All we got to do is get through this rainstorm, hopefully and it’ll be okay,” he said.
KUTV will continue to monitor conditions in Hurricane and provide updates as the situation develops.
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