Mobile home residents to get relief from floods

Thursday, Aug. 9, 2001 | 10:47 a.m.

A $5.2 million contract to build a channel along the Flamingo Wash should help ease the concerns of residents of the Miracle Mile Mobile Home Park, which was inundated by floodwaters in 1999.

The Clark County Regional Flood Control District Board today awarded the contract to Las Vegas Paving Inc., which will build the channel designed to protect the 520-unit mobile home site.

Severe flooding and erosion in July 1999 destroyed five homes and damaged another 10 in the park built next to the wash along Boulder Highway.

The county is taking steps in both the short and the long term to stop future erosion at the site. The flood, which affected the entire Las Vegas Valley, killed two people and caused an estimated $20 million in public property damage. Nearly 400 homes were damaged throughout the valley, prompting then-President Clinton to declare Southern Nevada a federal disaster area.

The three-quarter-mile-long channel will cost about $7.5 million to complete. The county is paying for the construction, county Public Works spokesman Bobby Shelton said. The rest of the money comes from a quarter-cent sales tax that is funneled into a regional fund.

Construction is expected to begin in October, Shelton said. The project should be completed by the summer of 2002, he said.

Erosion is a major problem in the washes that drain the valley, flood experts say. In addition to destroying property along the valley's washes during floods, sediment also contributes to water quality degradation in Lake Mead, the Las Vegas Valley's major source of drinking water.

The Las Vegas area -- 1,650 square miles -- is prone to flooding because rain water drains into Las Vegas Wash. The valley receives an average of 4.23 inches of rainfall annually, but a summer thunderstorm such as the one that spawned the 1999 flood can bring more than an inch of rain per hour. The valley received more than 3 inches during the storm in 1999.

Since 1960 the area has experienced nine "million-dollar floods," meaning property damage was estimated at more than $1 million. Since 1977, 26 people have died in Southern Nevada as a result of flooding.

The latest project on Flamingo Wash complements an earlier improvement to a bridge spanning the wash at Boulder Highway, regional flood control spokeswoman Betty Hollister said.

The $6 million bridge expansion project allows additional water to flow under the road, which helps remove the threat of flash flooding, Hollister said.