Flood problems plague Strip hotel

Molly Ball

Tuesday, April 6, 2004 | 11:13 a.m.

Ask authorities how often the garage behind the Imperial Palace floods and you'll get the same answer: "Every time it rains."

It rained on Friday, and sure enough, the area flooded. The Clark County Fire Department was called to rescue two men in a Ford Mustang that had stalled in shallow, rushing water that swirled toward the flood-control drain on Winnick Avenue, department spokesman Bob Leinbach said on Monday.

Asked about the frequency of such rescues at that location, Leinbach said, "About every time it rains."

But despite urging from flood-control officials, the Imperial Palace has no plans to make its parking garage more flood-safe, a spokesman said.

"All we can do, it seems, is just monitor the flood situation and look out for everybody," said Jeremy Handel, the hotel's public relations manager.

"If we could influence the weather in any way, I'm sure we would."

But Bobby Shelton, spokesman for the Clark County Public Works Department, said public works officials have "highly encouraged" the hotel to make major structural improvements to prevent such flooding, and the hotel has declined to do so.

A flood control channel runs behind the hotel.

"It's private property, so we can't dictate what they do with their property," Shelton said, noting that public funds could not be used for such a project. But, he said, "Anything that improves the safety of the flood control channel is a good idea."

The problem, Shelton said, is that the Imperial Palace's parking structure is situated squarely atop a major flood wash, the Flamingo Wash. Rainfall from as far away as the Spring Mountains, on the western side of the Las Vegas Valley, flows east and collects in the wash.

Other Strip properties, notably Caesars Palace and the Las Vegas Hilton, are also located on the wash but have spent millions to corral the waters.

Handel said the Imperial Palace has "looked at" the issue but has no plans to make changes to the structure.

"We haven't found an engineering solution that would be viable," he said.

The flooding usually causes the hotel, which opened in its present form in 1979, to close off its public parking area. "If someone's vehicle is in the lot, unfortunately, they will not be able to get out," Handel said.

He would not comment on the effect of such incidents on the hotel's image with customers or its bottom line.

Ten years ago, the county spent $2.7 million to line a flood channel with concrete where it comes out from under the hotel parking lot and to put in a grate at Winnick Avenue to drain the floodwaters, Shelton said.

But "when you get this type of flash flooding, the water flows across the road faster than it can go through the grate," he said.

Department officials have met several times for negotiations on the issue with the Imperial Palace, Shelton said. Their last such meeting was last year, he said.

Monorail tracks are to run over the flooded area, but they are elevated at least 25 feet from the ground and would not be affected, Todd Walker of the Las Vegas Monorail Co. said.

In planning the monorail, "We fully understood we were building in a flood zone, and our contractor understood" what that entails, Walker said.