Flooded again! Several homes on Main Street in Washington awash after Saturday afternoon storm

This home on Main Street in Washington City was flooded as heavy thunderstorms struck the area. Washington City, Aug. 12, 2018 | File photo by Ryan Rees, St. George News

WASHINGTON CITY — Several homes along Main Street in Washington City were flooded again late Saturday afternoon.

Flooding in Washington City, Utah, Aug. 12, 2018 | Photo courtesy of David Harris, St. George News

The area was flooded July 13 when mud and silt washed down the street from Buena Vista Boulevard to Telegraph Road. Although the damage wasn’t as severe this time, at least one residence was inundated with 6 inches of water and mud.

Read more: Community comes together for Main Street cleanup effort in Washington City

“The city keeps saying they’re going to do something, but they haven’t,” an area resident said early Sunday morning as he surveyed the flooded front yard of his home on Main Street, which is closest to an underpass beneath Interstate 15 where water from the northern side was funneled down the street. Sandbags failed to hold back the deluge that washed into the muddy yard and home.

“It’s just as bad,” he said. “Oh well. We’ll just have to clean it up again.”

Chief Jim Keith of the Washington City Police Department said several homes along the street were flooded because they are situated below the road grade.

“We had a lot of streets closed briefly because of the sheer volume of water that came down in a short time,” he said. “Reports said we got around an inch in a 30-35 minute period.”

He said there were no personal injuries.

A backhoe sits at the muddy intersection of Buena Vista Blvd. and Main Street in Washington City after heavy rains caused minor damage Saturday afternoon, Aug. 12, 2018 | Photo by Ryan Rees, St. George News

A retention pond and street on the north side of the interstate at the intersection of Main and Buena Vista were clogged with mud where a backhoe sat nearby. Several piles of mud remained Sunday morning after being scraped off the street by city workers.

“They’ll be out there today and probably tomorrow clearing that up,” Keith said Sunday morning.

After the July flooding, most homes along Main Street were protected by barriers of sandbags, which mitigated the damage Saturday afternoon.

The afternoon storm, with heavy winds, dumped a half inch of rain in some areas of Ivins and Santa Clara as well, but no flooding or damages were reported.

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14 Comments

  • Lastdays August 12, 2018 at 12:45 pm

    One way for Washington City to help resolve this flooding would be to build an Interchange at Main & I-15.
    Part of the design phase would be to solve this flooding once and for all as part of a larger ~$25 million dollar project.
    A large box culvert (?) or something could be built with this project to intercept these flood waters and prevent future flooding.

    • Anejo August 12, 2018 at 1:34 pm

      Is it possible that it would render an interchange unusable for a good chunk of the monsoon season?

    • Crazy2 August 12, 2018 at 2:39 pm

      The best option would be 300 E. I don’t understand why the city can’t see that the 2nd busiest road in Washington City should go straight to the freeway. They need to fix the flooding issue but having a huge amount of traffic travel down main street then have to make a left turn and go three blocks on Telegraph to get to Washington fields road is stupid. The goal is to reduce congestion on telegraph and fix traffic issues.

  • Carpe Diem August 12, 2018 at 1:10 pm

    The Santa Clara came up pretty good but for a brief time.

  • tcrider August 12, 2018 at 1:41 pm

    This Washington City at its finest,

    They will support a golf course that will not allow bikes on the trails and will not
    support any bikes in the green springs area, but will allow Main street to be above grade, or above
    property owners property so rain will keep flooding homes,
    Washington city and especially Green Springs is a huge black eye for the greater Saint George area,
    What a embarassment.

  • Carpe Diem August 12, 2018 at 2:23 pm

    Lot of construction upstream of this intersection, seems to me the City is more interested in the interchange than fixing this problem that seems to suddenly cropped up. Waiting for people to beg for the interchange, are we?

    • Anejo August 12, 2018 at 2:28 pm

      Only a cynic would suggest that Washington City is going to usurp the interchange against the wishes of the residents instead of fixing an ongoing problem!

      How much federal money will this interchange inject into Washington? Purely for research purposes, of course!

      • Carpe Diem August 13, 2018 at 12:12 pm

        Oh trust me, I’ve seen more than my share of cities doing this in my time. Perhaps you weren’t aware of the Southern Utah cities clamoring to spend billions to bring water here from Lake Powell for unbridled growth. They actually brag about it. “We project a gazillion people soon” yadda yadda

  • Redbud August 13, 2018 at 4:06 am

    I feel bad that their homes flooded, but if I lived anywhere near there, I would just cut my loses, clean up the mess, sell my home and move somewhere else where I won’t get flooded out. That was one of the first things I looked at when I bought my house, is whether the house was on high ground or not. All these people who have built, or are in the process of building homes near rivers, washes, streams, etc… What do they honestly think is going to happen when we get these bad rainstorms? Do you really think the city is going to come to your rescue and install massive drainage systems? Also, remember those rivers, washes, etc… Those were all there BEFORE you built your house there. It reminds me of those people on the island of Hawaii who built their homes on top of an active lava field, and now people who lack any common are surprised that it’s swallowing entire neighborhoods. Well, duh?

    • Cory August 13, 2018 at 12:18 pm

      First off, I want to say that your statements are completely inaccurate and you obviously are not a resident of the area. These houses that keep getting flooded have been located here for over 30 years. They are not in a flood area and should not be getting flooded. My family has been in this area for over 50 years (1 street over from Main) and we have never been flooded until these last two storms. There are two major contributors to the flooding. First, over the past couple of years they have built main street up to where it is higher than the houses around it. When those house were built they were higher than main street. Second, the city has allowed the building of new communities north of main street that have displaced the natural water drainage straight down main street. This amount of rain is not uncommon for this area. The so called “retention pond” is a joke. You cannot replace a natural wash with a tiny pond the size of a swimming pool and think that will hold the runoff during the monsoon seasons. The City is completely at fault for this flooding and should take responsibility for there actions.

      • Redbud August 14, 2018 at 4:27 am

        Ok so like I said, the city is not going to come to your rescue. Do you expect the city to bulldoze everything that’s been built contributing to the flooding? Even if you have been there for 50 years, 100, 300 years, it does not matter at this point. Your house will get flooded again and again. It’s not a question of if, but when. Go ahead and stay there and get flooded again, no one is stopping you. No one is going to stop the flooding either, as long as you’re prepared for that. To keep believing that someone is going to fix it, is wishful thinking at best. In the grand scheme of things, “30 years” and “50 years” are a drop in the bucket compared to the rest of history going back. As human beings, our mortal finite minds can not fathom nor process time. We don’t want to see the bigger picture, we only want to see the here and now. We have a hard time pondering what’s happened over the last several hundred, thousand, or tens of thousands of years. We only know our insignificant past 30 years or 50 years, and block out all the rest because we can’t make sense of it.

        • AstroBoy August 14, 2018 at 9:02 am

          Redbutt, you hack we have science that will tell us where water has flown for millions of years. When man changes geography they change where water will flow. If you cause negative externalities that harm others you are usually liable for the damages. Now I’m not saying you as a home owner of one of the new areas should personally be liable but the engineers who signed off on that crap should be. And moving the roads above the homes to prevent the roads from getting wet is just dastardly, in any just society the guys who signed off on that move should be punished.

          • Redbud August 15, 2018 at 1:23 am

            The engineers, nor the city will be held liable, nor will they take responsibility (even if they should). Wishful thinking. Like I said, cut your losses and move on, or just stay there.

  • Mike P August 13, 2018 at 10:39 am

    Kinda reminds me of the Southern Carolina coast where they keep rebuilding the same houses on the same lots every 5 years or so after the hurricanes.

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