Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2004 | 11:30 a.m.
Storms that swept across the Las Vegas Valley Monday afternoon left streets in part of a southwest Las Vegas neighborhood covered with thick mud, stagnant water and debris, and now residents in the area are wondering who will clean it up -- and when.
Residents said their neighborhood, near Fort Apache and Sunset roads, was hit hard during Monday's storm, with runoff rising over curbs and overflowing onto sidewalks and into driveways.
The area received more than an inch and a half of rain during the storm, according to the National Weather Service.
While most of the runoff was gone by Tuesday morning, streets at the intersection of West Brooks Lake Avenue and South Bison Creek Street were caked with slippery, foul-smelling mud and covered in trash, wooden pallets and other debris washed in from a nearby construction site.
A large, stagnant puddle remained in the construction site, next to the intersection, late Tuesday afternoon. A Caterpillar bulldozer was stuck in the puddle, which reached mid-tire of the vehicle.
Diana Bigham, who is renting a home in the 9700 block of Brooks Lake Avenue, just two houses down from where the bulldozer sat, stood in her driveway early Tuesday evening and shook her head.
"The reason we're standing here looking at all this mess is because this neighborhood has no storm drains," Bigham said. "My boyfriend and I walked up and down the streets and looked and looked, and there isn't one storm drain. How can you build a development in Las Vegas and not put storm drains in?
"Now what are we supposed to do?" she said. "No one wants to get out there and touch the stuff or clean it up because it's not safe."
Bobby Shelton, a spokesman for the county's Public Works Department, said Woodside Homes of Nevada Inc., which is developing the neighborhood, is responsible for the flood cleanup "since the land has not been handed over to the county yet."
Shelton said he spoke to the vice president of the company at 3 p.m. and was told that crews would go out to the neighborhood Tuesday afternoon to clean up the area and the vice president would be present as well.
But according to residents, neither cleanup crews nor the vice president had been to the neighborhood as of 6:30 p.m.
"I haven't seen one person come out here to clean up," Bigham said. "In fact, no one has said anything to us about what is going to be done about this. We haven't gotten a call, knock on the door, letter or anything. I heard they said they were going to come clean it, but they haven't, and if they haven't by now they probably won't."
Clean-up crews did reach the neighborhood later in the evening and stayed until 10 p.m., Shelton said this morning. Crews were supposed to be going back to the site to finish the cleanup today.
No one from Woodside Homes returned calls for comment Tuesday or this morning.
Several residents said they were concerned about the mud and debris, not only because of the mess but also because of the danger it poses.
Mike Brennan, who lives on South Bison Creek Street, said he wouldn't let his 6-year-old daughter Britney play around the neighborhood until the streets are cleaned up.
"Who knows what is in that mud and water?" Brennan said. "You can see all the trash out there with it. That's the last place a parent wants their child to play around."
Edward Frei, who lives down the street, said he worried the stagnant water puddles would attract mosquitoes that carry West Nile virus.
"It might be a paranoid thing to think, you know, but you see all over TV not to have these puddles around your house and here are all these puddles and no one doing anything about it," Frei said. "But what can we as residents do to soak up those puddles?"
Frei said he spent Tuesday afternoon shoveling gravel and mud from his driveway.
"I did what I could as far as my driveway and in front of my house goes, but the developers or county or someone needs to take care of what's going on down the road," he said. "As far as I'm concerned, that's not my job. But they'd better do something soon because this is disgusting. I'm not going to live like this."
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