Torrential rains are no stranger to LV Valley

Friday, July 9, 1999 | 10:41 a.m.

Torrential rains producing floods that sweep cars, trucks and mobile homes away on Thursday are not a new phenomenon in Southern Nevada's desert valley.

In the past two years, severe storms have raked Henderson, Boulder City and eastern Las Vegas. In September a tornado destroyed two buildings in Henderson and more than 2 inches of rain ruptured the closed Sunrise Mountain landfill, dumping trash, medical wastes and sludge into the Las Vegas drinking water supply.

Thursday's storm developed from hot, moist air moving into the valley from Mexico and the Gulf of California, chief meteorologist Larry Jensen said. The thunderstorm formed over the center of the valley and dumped more than 3 inches of rain in less than three hours in some places.

"This is the worst flood in Las Vegas since at least 1984," Ron McQueen, warning coordination meteorologist for the National Weather Service, said.

More than $7 million in property damage resulted from a series of storms that raked Southern Nevada and the southwest in August 1984.

A woman and two children and another man were swept away in the floodwaters that inundated the Las Vegas Valley for almost three weeks. In September 1984 then President Ronald Reagan approved $4.3 million in flood aid to restore roads and other public property.

Significant flooding also occurred in 1992, 1995, 1997 and 1998.

But veteran residents of the valley's stormy past best remember the July 1975 flood because it swept 300 cars out of a parking lot at Caesars Palace as easily as a broom brushes away crumbs.

That flood also killed two North Las Vegas Public Works Department employees as raging waters roared down the Las Vegas Wash. The workers were trying to remove debris from a plugged storm drain leading into the wash.

Another killer storm pounded the Las Vegas Strip one gloomy night in September 1961. Nine people were killed, including four Nevada Power Co. workers trying to restore electricity and five Boy Scouts who were washed out of a campground in Zion National Park in Utah and down the Virgin River to Mesquite.

In 1955 the Army Corps of Engineers had to repave roads and restore the Charleston underpass after a severe summer storm ripped across the valley.

In June of 1954 6 inches of floodwaters covered the old McCarran Airport when it was located on Las Vegas Boulevard South.

The most rain-soaked month Las Vegas experienced came in January 1941. Menacing gray clouds hung over Las Vegas and pelted the desert community with a record 10.72 inches of rain that month. The valley averages 4.1 inches of rain a year.

As Southern Nevada continues to grow and pave the desert with concrete, less rain could add up to worse flooding, officials fear.

In 1989 Southern Nevada residents began paying an extra quarter cent on every $1 in sales taxes to flood-proof the valley.

Although $300 million has built 20 major flood control projects since then, it will take another 30 years to completely protect the valley, Regional Flood Control Director Gale Fraser said.

While another $200 million will be spent in the next year on new basins and channels, it has become a race with nature and valley growth to protect residents and visitors, Fraser said.