Powerful rains, flooding return to Fountain Green for second-straight day
Aug 19, 2024, 11:04 PM | Updated: Aug 20, 2024, 10:21 am
FOUNTAIN GREEN, Sanpete County — As the community scrambled Monday to fill sandbags and distribute them to already flood-weary neighborhoods, heavy rains returned for a second-straight day, producing additional flooding.
The town already had its hands full cleaning up after Sunday’s storm that produced approximately 3 inches of rain in an hour.
Officials estimated Monday that more than half and possibly as much as two-thirds of the city’s 1,200 residents had been impacted in one way or another by flooding Sunday.
At least five families and possibly more than 10 were displaced by flooding, according to Fountain Green officials and administrators with the American Red Cross.
Councilwoman Alyson Aagard Strait said city leaders were still working to estimate all the damage by checking in individually with residents.
“This doesn’t happen in Fountain Green, ever,” Strait told KSL TV. “A lot of families are devastated.”
The threat of additional rain Monday brought a small crowd of residents to the parking lot outside of city hall to help fill and distribute sandbags.
Coming to help others
“There are people here who are actually flooded themselves who came out to help others who are in worse circumstances,” Strait said. “And as you can see by the weather, everyone’s worried it’s going to happen again.”
True to their fears, heavy rains did bombard the city again for roughly 20 minutes Monday evening, producing additional street and some basement flooding on the west side of town.
“Even more rain is coming in right now and making that challenge even worse,” said Benjamin Donner, executive director of the American Red Cross in Central and Southern Utah.
Down the street from where firefighters were helping to pump water out of a basement, resident Kendra Miller told KSL TV, she got soaked while trying to protect her possessions and her exposed basement from the second round of rains.
“We were throwing plywood covers down, things that we could put tarps in place to just keep that second round to going back into where that empty window is.”
Miller said she had just made an appointment to have fill dirt delivered to her property Monday, compounding matters.
“It will be a while before we can actually let it start to dry out and landscape,” Miller said.
Donner said his organization was working to connect displaced families with resources and helping to ensure they had places to stay.
He urged anyone in the community who needed help to call 1-800-RED-CROSS (1-800-733-2767).
“We just want to make sure no one is suffering in silence,” Donner said.
