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Subscribe to RSSResidents in four Southwest states were drying out Wednesday after thunderstorms flooded Las Vegas streets, stranded Navajo families in northern Arizona, left two mobile home communities in Southern California deep in water and caused a dike to fail in a Utah town.
In the Las Vegas area, the Tuesday storms delayed flights, snarled traffic and prompted helicopter rescues of stranded motorists. A golf course worker was reported missing and a search for the man resumed Wednesday, NBC affiliate KSNV-TV reported.
Television news video showed school buses inching along roads after school east of downtown Las Vegas, and muddy water up to the lower sills of windows of stucco homes in other neighborhoods.
In southeast Las Vegas, authorities urged the residents of about 45 homes damaged by flooding to leave in case electrical fires are sparked.
Dozens of cars were swamped by water up to their headlights in a parking lot outside the Thomas & Mack sports arena at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Firefighters responded to more than 20 calls about people in stalled cars .
John Locher / Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP
University of Nevada students Ryan Klorman, left, and Markus Adams relax on inflatable pool toys in floodwater in a parking lot at UNLV in Las Vegas on Tuesday
A Las Vegas police helicopter was dispatched during the height of the storm to pluck several people from swamped vehicles on roadways.
More than 1.75 inches of rain were reported in downtown Las Vegas. The rainfall amounts put the region on pace to exceed the 4.5 inches of rain it normally gets in a year.
Tuesday was also the wettest September day on record in Las Vegas, weather.com meteorologist Nick Wiltgen reported.
Thunderstorms leave Las Vegas under water as flash floods strand motorists and lightning strikes delay flights at McCarran International Airport. NBCNews.com's Dara Brown reports.
Calif. mobile home parks hit hard
In California's Coachella Valley, a thunderstorm on Tuesday dropped more than the average annual rainfall there in one night alone, settling for six to eight hours over Mecca and Thermal, desert towns 150 miles southeast of Los Angeles.
In Thermal, the downpour flooded the Desert Mobile Home Park better known as Duroville, a community of mostly migrant workers with about 1,500 people, including 900 children, that has long been the subject of legal fights as Riverside County officials attempt to relocate residents.
More than a foot of water stood in the southern end of the park, knocking out power to about 800 people for much of the day.
"None of us had ever been through anything like this," said Tom Flynn, the court-appointed receiver for Duroville. "That much water in a dilapidated mobile home park was something to see."
The lack of power knocked out electric motors on both of the park's wells, leaving no fresh water until one was revived and county workers brought several tons of bottled water.
The park has no paved streets or drainage, and health officials were concerned about overflow from two ponds that serve as the community's sewers.
Between 60 and 80 people had evacuated from the park and were spending the night at a high school. "The poorest of the poor were hit the hardest," Flynn said.
St. Anthony's Mobile Home Park in Mecca also was affected, but fared better than Duroville. Video clips showed residents wading through knee-high water and cars creeping through flooded residential streets.
The storm dropped 5.51 inches of rain near Mecca and 3.23 inches of rain near Thermal, meteorologist Mark Moede said. The average annual rainfall in arid Thermal is just shy of 3 inches, he said.
"That's an amazing amount of rain," Moede said. "It's unusual anywhere to get a storm that sits stationary for five to eight hours."
Arizona and Utah flooding
On the Navajo Nation reservation in northeastern Arizona, many of Tuba City's roads were underwater and residents stuck in their homes. State Route 264, one of two main arteries in and out of town, was closed after a bridge washed out about a mile outside of the community, Tuba City Chapter Manager Benjamin Davis said.
Flooding was reported in some homes but no residents were displaced, Davis said.
Meanwhile, a dike that broke during heavy morning rain flooded nearly four square blocks in the southern Utah city of Santa Clara. More than 30 homes and business were evacuated after the break.
City Manager Edward Dickie said the dike along a retention pond sent a deluge of water into downtown.
Scott G. Winterton / The Deseret News via AP
This neighborhood was among the areas flooded in Santa Clara, Utah on Tuesday.
"It didn't just breach. It broke. It's gone," he said, adding that the flooding quickly receded as water drained into rivers and creeks.
Such a wide area across the Southwest was hit, Wiltgen told NBCNews.com, because moist, unstable air interacted with a disturbance in the upper atmosphere.
"The disturbance helped to trigger the scattered thunderstorms that popped up across a broad swath of the Southwest," he said, "and these storms translated that very moist air into flooding downpours."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Leave a Comment:
They need the rain badly. They need a lot more. Stop Complaining. Drought and wild fires still dominate the entire area.
When it comes to water, there can be too much of a good thing.
I wouldn't exactly be swimming in this floodwater, like those guys in the innertubes in the parking lot. Wouldn't there be sewage entering that water, maybe?
of course people with flooded homes and businesses should be thankful, because area's near them are in a drought and on fire and could use the rain.
it makes so much sense - said no one.
As long as it doesn't get high enough to affect the 2nd floor high limit area of the Planet Hollywood casino, all is well.
Still liked it better as the Alladin. I forget what the name of the high roller room upstairs was called.
Anyone?????
And this my friends is why when I lived in Vegas I always had a second floor apartment. Well worth the extra $15 a month. No matter how many basins or drainage channels they put in, poop will always happen in the desert.
The London Club.
Jeepgal66,
You are exactly correct. Not to mention all the oil that floats to the surface from all the vehicles that are running through the water.
It all looks like a lot of fun but, they're going to get botulism if they get any water in there mouths, not to mention oil all over their bodies. Eww!
What happens in Vegas, stays in vegas! ;-) They really do need it anyway.....
oh man, I was in vegas last month when it rained and underestimated the size of a puddle. almost drowned the car. It didn't help that I sped up to almost 50 before driving through it. I thaught the airbags were going to hit me in the face. hahaha
oh yeah, and then we passed a bunch of kids with boogie boards. they were having a blast.
No, not the London Club. But it was called something along those lines.
they should be thankful, after all the wild fires and drought it finally rained....rain some more!
Yea, I doubt anyone who lost a house or car is going to be thanking anyone.
We haven't had a lot of wildfires in or around Las Vegas this year, and if there is a drought one rainstorm in the southwest isnt really going to help as we actually get our water from the Colorado River, it's more important to us that it snow in the Rockies than rain in the desert.
so, what happens in vegas doesnt stay in vegas.
Wow, a thunderstorm caused all that? And what a waste of water. It just ran off instead of soaking into the ground.
It all eventually goes to Lake Meade.
I assume you're only talking about Las Vegas as that's the closest area to Lake Mead that's discussed in the article. No, it won't all go to Lake Mead, only the water that ends up in the Las Vegas wash or falls directly into Lake Mead goes into Lake Mead (aside from the Colorado River which feeds right into it).
It's not a waste, this is how the Mojave handles water. It will soak up into the ground eventually, some might evaporate, but this is how the desert works, and has worked for quite some time.
It wasn't a total waste, the illegals finally got a bath. Too bad it didn't wash the trailer trash back across the border.
I don't know, ALOT of illegal migrants live in these trailer parks! Wonder how many of thier kids will become gang bangers now? I am stating a fact. I am not being racist!
Jeepgal - ask Marco Rubio, he should know all about illegals becoming gang bangers, because he's of latino decent.
it's not racist, it's fact...he's latino.
The trailer trash are mostly white rednecks nitwit. The rains generally do not do much good because they come in buckets and nothing sinks into the ground. By the way rednecks, you can blame Mexico for all the rain. The rain comes up from Mexico in the form of the monsoon.
its interesting if you look a las vegas areas. all the high end communities are built up on higher land and the lower end communities are low. Thank god my condo in green valley is in the hills. Its funny though when we bought our home several years ago the insurance company required flood insurance. I was like, what? in the desert? who woulda thunk. Guess i know why now.
newsflash - thats how EVERY major city is.
do you think rich people are itching to buy in low lying, flood prone area's?
no, thats where the poor people get stuck...not by choice, but because it's all they can afford (and you can bet they dont have flood insurance)
Like New Orleans?
That's actually not true at all. Southern Highlands is a pretty high end community, much of the community is brand new custom homes sitting on a golf course and it was flooded yesterday, as was Summerlin which is another high end area in Las Vegas.
Flooding in Las Vegas is pretty well known (at least to people who live here) so in response to your question of "who knew?", just about everybody. There are literally billboards everywhere from the Clark County Flood Control District about flood awareness, as well as there is a TV channel operated by the flood control district called Flood TV (I dont remember what number the channel is). There's also a museum in town called the Springs Preserve which has a pretty awesome flash flood room, so yeah, there's really no excuse to not know it floods here.
Very funny comments. Here's the deal: the desert ground is so hard and dry that the rain does not soak in, it runs off. So when you get an inch of rain in less than an hour, you get flash flooding. Also, water comes rushing down the mountains surrounding the valley, adding to the mess.
Clark County has spent millions on flood control. There is a large system of drainage channels and retention basins, with more to come. But even with all those measures in place, the shear amount of rain in such a short span of time was too much for the system.
I lived in LV for 14 years, and flooding was already bad back in the '70s and '80s. There's a layer of a very hard substance called caliche ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliche ) under the soil that prevents rainwater from seeping down very far. Add to that the thousands of acres that are paved over with concrete, and the lack of an adequate sewer system, and of course you're going to get floods. When I lived there, the local media would always show pictures of kids diving off the Charleston overpass into water that was at least 10 feet deep.
Flash flooding is part of the desert environment. Hike out into any desert and you'll find the easiest routes are along the dry washes. If it rains though you'd better find high ground. If you are going to build homes and businesses you'd better get out the survey maps and know where the flood plain is. Water seeks the neutral value of sea level, best not to get in its way.
Looks live Vegas gonna get more than 4.5 inches this year. That should make SOMEONE happy.
mother nature is really pissed this year....hopefully not an early winter and hopefully not much snow here in the east...
I used to live in Las Vegas, they build first then figure out flood control.
have cris angel make it disappear.
Or better yet, have the floods make Criss Angel disappear.
It doesn't take a lot of water to fill the streets in vegas, but 1.75 inches is a huge amount of water foe a city that flat. hopefully it wont go to waste and it will fill Lake Mead, it's been low for several years.
This happens every year in Vegas.... it rains like 2 inches in 1 hour and then clears off for 364 days of dry, hot weather. When i lived there we had 2 foot rivers as streets.... children swam down the neighborhood streets as if they were at the beach.... only lasted 20 minutes but it was a site to see.
Jessica
your absolutley correct look at the issues in New Orleans, put all the poor folk in the dry lake bed. So if it floods no loss. I still love Las Vegas . Its time to fill up Lake Meade anyway.BOO Yah
Lake Meade is dry as a bone, i'm sure they can use this kind of rain 100 times over to fill it back up again.
Note that this makes the second time in as many weeks that Obama had to move a speech indoors .... I'm just sayin ...
I hope they don't use taxpayer money to rebuild the migrant worker trailer park...but they probably will
county money for sure had the same "Migrant camp" in NM county came cleared up roads ,kids bus service water trucks , Generators ', supplied power school buses all for Illegal trailer park paid NO taxes or utilities
no wonder they stayed eventually they got something for nothing," Refugee Camps right here in America you can take the citizens out of Mexico/Indian but can't take the FREE out of........
Global Raining. All GW Bush's fault. He did not stop it. Did not care. Obama doing the best he can.
Who knew it rains in the desert.
Comon don't make it look bad! Nothing better than water in desert! Let the mother nature do her thing!
Use to live close to Las Vegas. Believe me, a little bit of rain can be a lot in that area. A lot of rain and you got big troubles. I saw first hand when the roads in Las Vegas were under water and seen cars with people in them being washed away. Nothing to joke about, that's for sure.
When the Asians came across the Bering Land Bridge during the glacial maximums, they settled in places where there were no other people. They learned how to live off the land and where to go for certain plants or animals. When the Spaniards came here in the 1500s, they came from a land hot and dry to a land hot and dry. They worked with the people, plants and animals the way they had in Spain.
In the late 1800s people came through New Mexico and Colorado and tried to cross Arizona, Utah and Nevada to get to California. Not many people decided to stay in the desert for a good reason. The weather, soil, water, plants and animals were totally foreign to them.
In the 1950s air conditioning was brought to the desert. The flood of people from the east and north was on. As more and more people moved here to get the better weather and available jobs, houses were put in places that normally filled up with water during times of high rainfall.
If we haven't been around to see where the water flows when it rains, we often put houses where they don't need to be.
Now we have people living on the shores of lakes or the banks of brooks, creeks and rivers that have found out what happens when 5 inches of rain falls on baked or saturated soil. In other parts of the country and world they are finding out the same thing. Just because the house has been there for over 200 years doesn't mean it's going to be able to stay there.
We are going to have to rethink where we build houses or make them float.
These days, people seem to have a hard time learning from the past. It is no different than people building in the mountains again, after they have been burned out by forest fires.
In Utah, city "leaders" allowed (money, money, money) developers to build in a dry wash.
Who could have ever thought a flood plain would flood?