Flood’s effects linger for some Las Vegans

Monday, Aug. 25, 2003 | 11:21 a.m.

As storm clouds slammed into the Spring Mountains west of Las Vegas on Sunday, Jeff and Kristal Ermilio moved some essential papers and their pet cat Oliver from their northwest apartment, which had been inundated in last Tuesday's flash flood.

Sunday's clouds threatened to repeat last week's flash floods, but they broke up before they could do any further damage in the Las Vegas Valley, allowing the Ermilios to recover belongings from their apartment, which was declared uninhabitable because of last week's storm.

Kristal, 19, had collected sports and entertainment cards since she was 12, she said.

After a few seconds in a microwave oven -- an attempt to save them -- the cards stubbornly stuck together in a soggy mass.

"They're pretty much lost," she said, along with a computer, clothing and furniture the couple lost. "At least we saved our passports."

The couple and 34 other residents had to leave their building, the Camden Bel Air apartments, at Gowan Road and Rainbow Boulevard, on Sunday after nearly 20 inches of rainwater filled their home and other units last Tuesday.

The Emilios were driving on Gowan on the day of the flood and saw the water rushing toward them, so they turned around. Their small car was swamped and no longer runs. Firefighters rescued them from the flood, Kristal barefoot at the time.

"Then we saw our apartment," Jeff Ermilio, 20, said. "We got a double whammy."

Both the front and back doors of the first-floor apartment were wide open and Oliver the cat was nowhere to be found.

"He was hiding under a blanket on our bed, he's fine," Kristal said.

The couple is temporarily splitting up, she moving in with her father and he to a friend's home.

"It was pretty heartbreaking," Kristal said Sunday night. The couple had spent four months at the Camden Bel Air, she said.

The apartment owners are relocating residents to other properties.

The Ermilios along with 400 other homeowners are still trying to recover from the devastating flood that hit northwest Las Vegas, Red Cross supervisor Matt Rosenberg said Sunday at a service center set up at Alexander Road and Allen Street.

Between Friday and Sunday afternoon, 54 families had sought relief with the Red Cross, Rosenberg said.

By today another 27 Red Cross volunteers from Louisiana, California, Colorado, Utah and Washington, D.C., who specialize in communications, social services and other areas, are expected to arrive in Las Vegas to go door to door and find out what people need.

Rosenberg estimated that the Red Cross will spend about $200,000 supplying food, clothing and repairing people's homes.

"Everything is a donation from the American people and the people of Las Vegas to those affected," Rosenberg said.

Volunteers will assess each home on a case-by-case basis, he said.

Outreach teams are visiting affected residents and will continue to do so, Rosenberg said.

Chuck Kornman, 80, of Grand Junction, Colo., has responded to disasters nationwide for the past 10 years. He spent three months in New York City after the terrorist attacks, he said.

Sometimes people don't need clothes or cash, just someone to say they cared enough to check on them, Kornman said.

"One Red Cross worker had a little girl come up and hug him, and that made that fella cry," Kornman said. "They were so grateful somebody cared enough to talk to them."

As for the possibility of future flooding in the Las Vegas Valley, National Weather Service forecasters said Sunday that thunderstorms are expected to rumble through Southern Nevada this week.

There was no measurable rain in the valley Sunday, meteorologist Charlie Schlott said -- although Mount Charleston got hail above 8,000 feet and nearly two inches of rain, enough to make creeks and roads fill with running water, firefighters told Schlott. There were no injuries and no forest fires reported.

The typical Southwest monsoon air flow from the south will continue to bring moisture into Southern Nevada, Schlott said.

Thunderstorms could continue into mid-September, along with heat.

Sunday's high hit 100 degrees before the storm, which cooled temperatures to 83 degrees, Schlott said.