Homeless man dies in flood control channel

Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2002 | 11:05 a.m.

After rescuing one man during the weekend and retrieving the mud-covered body of another Monday, police and firefighter crews with dog teams continued searching today for more homeless people who may have been swept downstream from their camp in a culvert during Saturday's rainstorm.

A student discovered the body of a man in his 40s Monday afternoon in the wash at the end of Sandhill Road north of East Washington Avenue about 5 p.m. Monday.

The dead man and another man who was rescued by firefighters at about 10 p.m. Saturday after clinging to a manhole cover had apparently been in a concrete flood control channel that filled with runoff from Saturday's rain, Las Vegas Fire and Rescue spokesman Tim Szymanski said.

Slightly more than a half-inch of rain had fallen in an hour on the northwest portion of the Las Vegas Valley, but when firefighters arrived that night, the channel draining into the Las Vegas Wash was churning with muddy water nearly 10 feet deep and nearly 30 feet across, Szymanski said.

Rescuers discovered the flood survivor clinging to a small rail inside a pipe under a manhole cover, Szymanski said.

Teenagers living in a nearby apartment complex on Sandhill heard the man's cries for help Saturday and called 911.

"I thought he was dead," 13-year-old Mark Cruz said. "He was an older white man. He was shaking."

When rescuers removed the trapped man, he told them three more people might be trapped inside the pipe. The victim explained that homeless people frequently crawl under cyclone fences and sleep inside the large pipes to escape the cold and wind. The man was taken to Valley Hospital and treated for hypothermia.

The water had run too deep and too fast Saturday night for a ground search so Metro Police flew a helicopter over the wash and used infrared detectors to search for victims, but no one else was found until Monday, Baker said.

More homeless people are on the streets this year after the MASH Village shelter closed in October.

"They make little camps in the washes," Metro Sgt. Chris Jones said.

The last time a homeless person drowned in a valley wash was during a flash flood on July 8, 1999, and that was considered a once-in-100-year storm event after two thunderheads merged overhead, officials said.

But even smaller amounts of rain can be deadly for anyone in the drainage system at the time because "everything flows down to the wash," Jones said.

While drownings have been rare, with more homeless on the streets looking for shelter and more flood control channels completed in the valley to carry the water swiftly away, officials are worried that the flooded ditches could trap more people.

"It depends on the rainfall," Sgt. Jim Baker said. "If we get a substantial rainfall we may get one or two victims."