Deluge dangers: Residents urged to prepare for EL Nino’s wrath

Ed Koch and Mary Manning

Saturday, Oct. 11, 1997 | 9:15 a.m.

WITH a particularly bad monsoon season behind us, area flood management officials and other authorities are hoping people got the message and will prepare for potentially devastating winter weather brought on by El Nino.

"Usually, it's the jurisdictions that wait until the last minute, but this year, we are ahead of the game," said Metro Police Officer Bill Cassell, who heads the search-and-rescue unit's swift water rescue team.

"Hopefully, the smaller floods this summer have gotten people off the dime. Those storms may have been a blessing even though a life was lost and there was some property damage, because it may have woke people up. People generally take things down to the wire and don't prepare."

Complicating matters, almost two-thirds of today's Southern Nevadans didn't live here during the disastrous El Nino-spawned deluge of 1982-83. They may have no idea what a rainy winter in the desert can do.

Las Vegas normally averages 2 to 3 inches of rainfall in the winter. But an El Nino can double or triple that amount as powerful "Pineapple Express" storms cross the Pacific from Hawaii and drench the Southwest.

El Nino occurs when westward-blowing trade winds weaken, allowing a mass of warm water off Australia to drive eastward to South America's west coast.

The unusually warm water acts on jet stream patterns, altering weather worldwide. The phenomenon got its name from the Spanish words for the baby Jesus because the pool usually arrives around Christmas.

Local officials blamed El Nino for the 1983 flood, which caused seven deaths and an estimated $27 million in property damage. Nevada was declared a disaster area, and in response to the devastation the state Legislature created the Clark County Regional Flood Control District.

That agency has since built 20 detention basins and 60 miles of channels to slow flood waters.

That won't be enough, however, to stop a strong El Nino this year.

"Conditions certainly are better now than in 1983 and 1984, but the Aug. 10 flooding in Henderson and the Sept. 3 flooding in northwest Las Vegas have showed us that much damage can still be done," said flood control district General Manager Gale Fraser.

"There is still $1.2 billion worth of flood-control improvements (30 or 40 additional basins) over the next 30 years that must be implemented."

To date, the district has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in flood-control improvements, enabling 7,800 acres to be taken out of flood zones.

The current facilities can slow or stop 80 million gallons of water, but it all depends on how fast it comes down.

For example, during summer storms, water in the Gowan South Detention Basin rose six feet in three minutes, Fraser said. In Henderson, one inch fell in 15 minutes and 2 1/2 inches fell in one hour, putting great pressure on those facilities.

As a result, work crews have been busy clearing channels and basins of debris so they can work at top efficiency.

Fraser believes people do realize the damage El Nino can do.

"I think people will surprise you -- I believe they are aware," Fraser said. "Every indication is that this El Nino will be as bad as past ones and maybe four- or five-fold worse."

If that happens, public safety agencies say they are ready.

Four Metro search-and-rescue officers, assisted by 32 trained civilian volunteers on standby, conduct about five swift water rescues per year.

Most of the time, they save the lives of motorists who thought they could drive through deep water.

"We can't stress enough when we tell people not to try to cross moving water in the road," Cassell said. "People tend to overextend the capability of their vehicles.

"It doesn't take much water to move a vehicle -- 15-18 mph can do it."

Rick Diebold, executive director of the Clark County chapter of the American Red Cross, said his agency is busy preparing for El Nino by securing area schools that will be used for shelters and raising 50 percent more than its $1.2 million annual budget.

"We're buying a lot of umbrellas," he mused, then said seriously: "We are making sure we have an adequate number of volunteers to feed and shelter people.

"We are absolutely taking El Nino very seriously. Even if it turns out not to be as bad as is being predicted, I won't look back on this preparation as a waste of time."

Diebold said the Red Cross is putting together a "very aggressive" campaign to raise funds that will be used to care for those who may be displaced by flooding this winter.

Efforts include a massive direct mail campaign to reach the smaller contributors and a more concentrated effort aimed at getting single donations of $5,000 or more.

"To put up a displaced family for two weeks in a hotel costs us $400," he said. "Last year, in Las Vegas, we responded to 158 small disasters like house fires that cost us $250,000."

The Red Cross holds free community disaster education programs to help people prepare for such events.

"Hopefully, people are more cognizant of what water can do," Diebold said. "But I believe if it weren't for the summer storms, people wouldn't be listening (to the warnings about El Nino)."

Yvonna Blunk, a co-owner of All Dry Roofing, a small local company, says she doubts a lot of people are listening and preparing.

"People generally put off repairing their roofs, then call and ask us to come out and fix them during the rainstorm," said Blunk, who runs the 5-year-old local company with her son, Rich.

"I don't understand how people can invest tens of thousands of dollars in their home, then not spend the money necessary to keep their roof in good shape and protect their investment."

After the recent monsoon rains, calls poured in to All Dry and other such businesses.

"After flooding, you'll see people get six to eight estimates, looking for the cheapest price," Blunk said. "Then, after getting all of the estimates, a number of them won't get the roof repaired, because they figure it hardly ever rains in Las Vegas.

"The best advice I can give is, whether El Nino is coming or not, get two or three estimates from licensed companies and get your roof repaired."

There are 89 roofing companies listed in the phone book, Blunk said, estimating that about 75 percent of them are licensed and bonded.

Rain and the subsequent flowing waters are not the only problems associated with area flooding -- and not necessarily the biggest part of it.

Richard French, a Desert Research Institute hydrologist who has been studying flooding in Southern Nevada for years, warns that Las Vegans live on alluvial fans, which tend to boost flooding problems.

Most of the damage, he says, comes from huge walls of mud, not the rushing water. And French notes that Southern Nevada's rainfall pattern shifts dramatically from season to season.

Guessing which areas the water and mud will strike is practically impossible, leaving many folks wondering just what to do to prepare for a potential disaster, such as whether to invest in flood insurance.

And if it's tough for Las Vegans, imagine how those living along the Colorado River must feel.

In July, the Bureau of Reclamation, which manages the Colorado River system that supplies drinking water to Nevada, California and Arizona, began making space-building flood control releases from Hoover Dam.

The same was done at David and Parker dams downstream on the river.

High runoff from the spring of 1997 has left storage space along the river in Lakes Mead, Mohave and Havasu at near capacity.

The bureau, to protect the dams, has been releasing higher-than-normal flows of water and will continue after January to make room for El Nino, as well as the melting snowpack next spring.

archive