Washington County Flood, 2010

In 2005, a very warm week melted a lot of the snow in the mountains of So. Utah causing the melted snow to come down the mountains and quickly fill the rivers. The rivers filled so fast and moved so quickly that it tore apart the banks and overflowed onto property. Homes were literally moved off of foundations and floated downstream. Many homes were lost and a number of lives as well. The floods made national news.

Since 2005, the county has been preparing in case of another flood. The banks of the rivers were enforced with large rocks and built up to hold a large volume of fast moving water. It came in handy this week as we have seen rainfall that exceeds that of our average rainfall for 2 years worth of time. It is still raining as I write this and many of our communities are facing serious damage. With that said, the preparations that were made have shown to be successful. No homes have been lost in So. Utah and not one life has been lost either. The water is higher then it was in 2005 but it is a lot more controlled. There was a scare that a dam would break which would have devastated the area, but experts declared the dam safe and we are just holding on now until the storm ends tomorrow. Christmas Eve should bring some sunshine and hopefully some drying out of the saturated Earth. A rainbow shown this morning and a woman was on the radio talking about how beautiful it was. She lost her husband in the 2005 floods and she felt that the rainbow this morning was sent from God to let us all know it was going to be ok. That made me smile.

These pictures were taken today of the creek that runs by a park in our neighborhood. Usually you have to climb down a rather steep hill to get to a very small creek at the bottom. The creek is usually so small you can jump across it. Today, the "creek" was at the level of the trail and in some places it completely covered the trail.

These photo's were taken yesterday of the Virgin and Santa Clara Rivers. Keep in mind that both of these rivers are usually only about a few feet deep (in this area) and the width of a trucks length.

Virgin River by Wal-Mart.

Again by Wal-Mart

Santa Clara River

Fast moving Santa Clara River

The water is at the height of the bridge. Many bridges have been taken out in surrounding communities while some homes in Arizona have been washed away. Two pedestrian bridges were washed off a golf course down the Santa Clara River yesterday.