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Show Wednesday, June 8, 1983 Vol. 3 No. 41 Cleans Up After Couimtfy from their homes during the By RON KNOWLTON Review Staff week. The weather also cooperated, as temperatures dipped, allowing stream flows to drop and giving volunteers and city workers somewhat of a break. Federal assistance will be available for flood and landslide victims in the county but they It was a week of relative calm following a series of mudslides that rocked Davis County the beginning of last week. Residents, displaced by the slides and continued flooding, returned to their homes to clean up mud and remove valuables Huge Mudslides Fldmgf shouldnt compare themselves to those who were in the Teton Dam flood in Idaho. Greer said the dam was federally owned so flood victims were the responsibility of the government. But Greer said the flood in Davis County was a natural disaster, allowing only supplementary aid to the victims from the shouldnt expect the help which was given to the Teton Dam victims. David Greer, representing the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) told people affected by the flood, at special meetings at Farmington Junior High and Woods Cross High Monday night, that they federal government. FEMA will set up a disaster assistance center at Farming-toJunior High today, June 8, from 10 a.m. until 7 p.m. The center will be staffed everyday until FEMA directors decide that everyone has been helped. Greer said the lines will be n long. The applications for assistance will be on a need priority basis so those who have homes to live in and can wait should let those who have immediate needs be served first since their applications will be processed first anyway. To make the process of getting aid quicker, it is advised that people should bring their drivers license, tax records from the past two years, title for the damaged property, photo- graphs of the damage, bills for repair and damage appraisals. If these records are lost or de- stroyed, FEMA will still process the application. FEMA will answer questions relating to federal aid at the Bountiful High auditorium today, June 8, at 8 p.m. The agency has also set up a disaster for any hotline at questions of the disaster 4s V Rl! ; ' vx program. For those who own homes which havent been affected by the floods or landslides, federal flood insurance is still available. To apply, call your individual insurance agent. There is car Nx HOME A i V by mounds of mud and debris carried through subdivisions by recent slides and high water. in Bountiful is inundated . Job 24-Ho- ur . Volunteer Network Formed The drama BOUNTIFUL often begins in the middle of the night. At 2 a.m. a dike breaks flooding nearby homes and washing mud and debris down a street. At the Bountiful city street department, City Councilman Keith Barton and other city officials man a CB radio unit 24 hours a day. Barton gets the news, calls Earl C. Tingey, a regional representative of the LDS Church, and within a half an hour 200 volunteers are out of bed and into the neighborhood. Moments later volunteers with trucks roar up the street loaded with sandbags from the Foss Lewis Sand and Gravel pit in Bountiful. The sandbags are quickly formed into a new dike. Tingey said the LDS Church set up a volunteer network two weeks ago to help the local communities. The network includes people of all faiths, ngt just Mor- mons, he emphasized.Weve been able to provide people in a moments notice which is a compliment to the people of the south Davis area, Tingey said. Tingey said the volunteer network has also spread to the north into Fruit Heights' and other areas threatened by flood waters. And now volunteers from Idaho, are calling offerto help. But the Rexburg ing volunteers are not needed just yet. He said local people have been able to handle flooding and clean up problems so far. Rexburg volunteers may be called in later to help with clean up of the area if necessary, he said. LuAnn Page, who has quit her secretarial job for now to help control center for man a the church, said the Rexburg volunteers are anxious to recipRe-xbur- g, . 24-ho- rocate for volunteer efforts G3O0 II i w rant Officer Elvin Harward said. He said the guardsmen are here to help the city and are under the jurisdiction of the city they go where the city requests their help. The guardsmen have also brought heavy equipment such as 20 ton dump trucks, backhoes and loaders in to help. Harward said the guardsmen are also controlling traffic in areas where the heavy equipment must get through. Because of the enormous size of some of the dump trucks, it is difficult for truck drivers to see some of the tiny cars darting in and out of city streets. Also some city streets have been closed, which has overloaded other streets. Since the flooding began, all of the Bountiful city office staff has been out helping to monitor creek conditions and man equipment where needed. Many city employees have survived on sparse hours of sleep during the week. Thursday night, for example, City Manager Tom Hardy got hindering a lot, she said. She said in one area where a house had been knocked off its foundation, sightseers stood in the way as heavy equipment tried to move the home. Some have also stood on the edge of washed out roads to take pictures of water cascading below, posing a danger to them- selves. People have a natural curiosity, but its one of those situations where you wish they could find a better place to go sightseeing, she said. - meeting he Harry Jones, Davis County chief deputy, said geologists arent convinced that the mudslide danger has passed yet. And county residents may remain on alert throughout the summer as snow continues to melt and dampen the ground. V . small mudslide flowed down Rudd Creek Sunday, in Farmington, but did very little ' damage, according to Farming-to- n City Manager Max Forbush. Jones said the mudslides in Bountiful and Farmington have completely demolished 12 or 13 homes. He said about another 60 were damaged. Residents have been allowed to return to their homes in areas that were evacuated, he said. But they should listen for sirens to warn of new mudslide y JiSss&fc had never heard anything about any danger prior to recent mudslides. I would like to know why they didnt tell us, Ungerman said. Councilman Gary Flood also indicated he had heard nothing from the federal agency. Officials are still keeping an eye out for more mudslides in canyons in the county, however. A fr-- w danger. Bountiful Mayor Dean Stahle iPIIKlil! said that in touring the Stone Creek area that was hit by a major mudslide with Gov. Scott Matheson, He just could not believe that this could happen Wadsworth (left) and Kelly Farmer take from break a cleanup work in Bountiful. They are members of a team from the Bountiful 1 8th LDS ward who are among hundreds helping victims of last week's floods and VOLUNTEERS Rich Classified . Sports Fitness Factor without anybody being seriously hurt or injured. Stahle said federal officials also were surprised. Stahle said the officials told him we cant understand it. In any ohter place we would have had hundreds of casualties, but here all All Stars Index Staying healthy is wise and important. Get the tips you need for all forms of exercise which will help you stay fit. Section B CC u . h, at present is the number of sightseers trekking into the city to survey the damage from a large mudslide on Stone Creek. .The sightseers are really Staying Alive XT & . from Utahns, when volunteers his first sleep in three or four flowed in to help clean up the days, Lana Townsend, admess following the Teton Dam ministrative assistant for the disaster. Bountiful Redevelopment AgenThousands of Davis County cy, said. volunteers have helped to avert Such has also been the case in millions of dollars in property other communities such as Cendamage in the county, officials terville, Farmington and West estimate. Bountiful where flooding and Since last week national mudslides have plagued the guard units from throughout the area. state have also come into the Its been absolutely unreal. Bountiful area to help clean up. Theyve just bent over backThe national guardsmen are wards above and beyond the helping to control traffic, keep call of duty, one city employee sightseers out of trouble areas in Bountiful said about the efso volunteers and city employforts of city officials who have ees can do their work, and are been up night and day to try to helping to remove debris and stave off further disaster. silt from city streams to keep She said that one of the bigthe water flowing, Chief War- gest problems for city workers a five day waiting period before the insurance goes into effect. The Small Business Administration will also provide loans for those businesses which have suffered during the flood. Jerry Williams of the National Weather Service told Farmington residents at a meeting Monday evening that personnel from the federal agency had recognized the instability of the canyons last winter. He said weather service workers had hiked in the canyons and surveyed them from the air. Kathleen Clark, an aide to Rep. James Hansen, said she would talk to Congressman Hansen about determining any liability. Farmington City Councilman Grant Ungerman said after the B 7A 6A Section .The best high school baseball players meet in the North-Sout- h All nament. Star Tour6A mmm gr you had was one broken leg. Stahle said all edicts for residents to boil their drinking water in Bountiful have been lifted. In Farmington it is also now safe to drink tap water. But because of a break in a major aqueduct, Weber Basin irrigation water was still unavailable to residents in south Davis County as of Monday. City and county officials are urging residents not to cross irrigation and culinary water lines. Stahle said it is difficult for the city to detect where the lines have been crossed. If they should be crossed, it would contaminate the citys culinary (drinking) water system, he said. Centerville Mayor Neil Blackburn issued a similar warning. Blackburn said that once irrigation water gets into the culinary water system its very difficult He said the city to purge. would need to use a highly chlorinated solution. Blackburn said that in Parrish Creek Canyon the slide potential is very significant. He said the area is being monitored on a basis. Officials have noted some ground movement in the canyon, he said. A slide could affect 100 homes and residents there should listen for a siren warning them to evacuate their homes, Blackburn said. In Bountiful there is some concern that 1800 gallons of mineral oil containing toxic PCBs could pose a health hazard to residents near the Stone Creek city power substation that was hit by the large mudslide there May 31. Stahle said the substance had been detected in mud in one basement and that it may have been spread thinly throughout the area. County health officials, however, say the PCB levels are far below federal limits and pose no health threat. In Fruit Heights, 100 homes below Baer Canyon have been placed on alert, City Recorder Belva Provost said. Residents there should be prepared to evacuate their homes at any time. City officials there are concerned that a mudslide could break loose from the mountainside and cause damage to property below. She said city officials have stationed two men on the mountainside at all times to maintain a 24 hour watch. She said city workers and volunteers have been able to contain the slide so far through a lot of effort of a lot of people. Everybody has been so helpful, even those who it hasnt looked like it would affect. She said workers also need to be careful in dredging Baer Creek so as not to knock out a major Weber Basin water line that serves much of the county. Stahle said that water levels in both Stone and Barton Creeks have dropped. He said city officials believe most of the snow 24-ho- ur has melted feeding the two creeks and that the flooding danger from the creeks has de- creased. Mill Creek, howeyer, is still rising. Mill Creek is fed by melting snow and water from a higher elevation and may not reach its peak flow for several weeks. Jones said all county offices in Farmington are now open and vehicles can enter Farmington again. But sightseers are urged to stay away. In West Bountiful, the city received another surge of water on 500 South over the weekend, City Councilwoman Irene Janes said. The surge broke through the sandbags and carried with it a lot of debris, endangering one home. But volunteers and city workers were able to place more sandbags and contain the water, she added. |
