Passengers in cars rescued from Imperial Palace garage

Friday, Dec. 26, 2003 | 9:56 a.m.

Seven people trapped in two cars were rescued from rushing water at the Imperial Palace parking garage after a Christmas day storm brought almost an inch of rain to some parts of the Las Vegas Valley.

"This is our second one," Clark County Fire Department Capt. Greg Cassell said about 11:30 p.m. after he led a rescue team that removed six visitors from Anaheim, Calif.

Rain and a few isolated thunderstorms raced through Las Vegas into the night on Thursday. Mount Charleston and the Spring Mountains received fresh snow.

Winds drove sheets of rain across the valley starting shortly after 1 p.m. and continued until almost 10:30 p.m. on Thursday.

The 11 inches of new snow at Mount Charleston pleased skiers and packed the Mount Charleston Lodge, bartender Paul Card said.

"It's been busy, busy, busy," Card said. "I saw one flash of lightning."

In addition to the garage, several roads in the northwest valley became impassable to traffic. Craig Road, Rainbow Boulevard, Durango Drive, Gowan Road, Lake Mead Boulevard and Alexander Street were briefly flooded.

In the late rescue, the six people were trapped in their car after it became stuck on a pillar in the Imperial Palace parking garage.

A total of 25 firefighters responded to the area as the rain began to taper off at 10 p.m., but the swiftly moving water delayed rescuers from reaching the people in the car.

"For a Christmas night rainstorm, we end up with two swift water rescues," Cassell said.

The car carrying five adults and a child about 6 years old drove into water pouring through the parking garage near Flamingo Road and Winnik Avenue as the volume of runoff increased, Cassell said.

The white car became trapped in about 8 inches of rainwater behind a white pillar in the garage, Cassell said.

"The best advice I can give is don't drive in flowing water," Cassell said, noting that a few inches of rapidly moving water can knock a grown man off his feet or sweep a car away.

Earlier Cassell and another team of rescuers plucked a woman from her small car at the entrance to the garage after water flooded the engine.

A woman trying to drive into the Imperial Palace garage about 5:30 p.m. on Thursday stalled her small blue Acura in water that reached midway up her hubcaps. Clark County rescuers quickly pulled her from the car to safety.

The resort closed its parking garage to incoming motorists.

National Weather Service forecasters said the massive winter storm that pummeled Southern Nevada and the rest of the West will drop temperatures into the 40s for highs and near 30 for lows for the next week.

Today's daytime temperature was expected to reach the low 50s and Saturday, and Sunday the highs will be in the 40s.

Weather Service meteorologist John Solomon said the official rainfall at McCarran International Airport was 0.31 of an inch.

The most rain fell in a gauge in the Las Vegas Wash at Sahara and Eastern avenues, he said, measuring 0.94 of an inch.

In addition, more rain and stormy weather is expected in Southern Nevada on Tuesday and possibly New Year's Eve on Wednesday.

McCarran experienced only a handful of flight delays Thursday and most were related to weather at hub cities, said spokeswoman Hilarie Grey.

"It was a quiet day," Grey said this morning. "Not a lot of people traveled on Christmas itself."