Officials say most flood systems worked

Thursday, Aug. 21, 2003 | 11:11 a.m.

Some parts of the $840 million invested in flood-control structures in the past decade kept areas hit hard in 1999 from damage from Tuesday's deluge, but other parts were overwhelmed, flood control officials said.

One longtime weak link -- the Charleston Underpass -- remained dry Tuesday, and the rebuilt channel of the Flamingo Wash near the Miracle Mile mobile home park kept that area above water as well.

The controls are part of a system of 62 detention basins, designed to hold huge volumes of storm runoff, and 350 miles of channels to bring the water into the basins and, ultimately, to Lake Mead.

The system built to eliminate chronic flooding at the Charleston Underpass at Interstate 15 and Charleston Boulevard got a test -- not the toughest one, but a test nonetheless. Longtime Las Vegas residents know that during previous years' downpours a 50-yard stretch at the site regularly turned into a lake, drowning cars, trucks and anything else that ventured into the cave-like underpass.

Often, the rain from a storm fell miles away, but the west-to-east movement of flood water still swamped the underpass. The work on the underpass was mostly completed this year, and flood control district officials said they found no flooding there this week.

In addition work near the Miracle Mile mobile home park paid off. The washes and control systems along the Tropicana and Flamingo washes seemed to handle what little rain they received, Fraser said.

But it wasn't a real test of many of the flood control structures.

"There's a lot of facilities all over the valley that probably didn't see a drop," Fraser said.

The intakes in the northwest were the weak links, Fraser said. Three inches of rain in less than an hour overwhelmed the intakes that feed the Gowan Detention Basin, and water flowed into and blocked streets, but the detention basins did their job, he said.