Valley storms expected to continue

Mary Manning and Eric Leake

Wednesday, Dec. 29, 2004 | 11:16 a.m.

A winter storm pummeled Southern Nevada most of Tuesday and through this morning with a one-two punch of rain in the valley and snow in the surrounding mountains.

The National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning for most of Clark County at 1:32 a.m. today and extended it twice, to 11 a.m. Downtown Las Vegas, the Strip, Summerlin, North Las Vegas, Henderson, McCarran International Airport and Henderson were among the areas in which the weather service expected flooding.

UNLV was also included, because it sits in the crosshairs of two major washes, the Flamingo and Tropicana washes, and the area around Sam Boyd Stadium between Flamingo Road and Russell Road and eastern Las Vegas was expected to flood as well.

The flash flood warning remained in effect long after skies began to clear this morning because of continued run-off on the roadways, the National Weather Service reported. Shortly after 9 a.m., the sun began to shine and the clouds drifted out of the valley toward the mountaintops.

Slick roads and rainbows were the main reminders of the hours of precipitation that had preceded them, but the weather service predicted more showers this evening and a chance of rain every day through the weekend as more storms roll in on jet streams from the Pacific.

Clark County emergency crews said that from Tuesday through 8 a.m. today they had responded to 29 calls to rescue motorists stranded in their stalled cars in rising water, Bob Leinbach, a spokesman for the Clark County Fire Department, said. Most of the vehicles had been abandoned before crews arrived, he said.

That was the case on Koval Lane, between Sands and Flamingo early today, for example, where several cars were abandoned by their drivers and police set up barricades to try to prevent more of the same.

But there were several other cases where people did need help getting safely out of their cars and out of floodwaters.

A woman was pulled from her car after it became swamped at Topaz Avenue and Warm Springs Road at 2:15 a.m. today by Clark County Fire Department swift water rescue crews.

Even a North Las Vegas Police officer had to be rescued from a patrol car after it was stuck in water up to its door handles along Ann Road at Commerce Street. The officer had been on a burglary call, police said.

Elsewhere, rain and poor visibility were believed to have contributed to a fatal accident that left a man dead this morning. The man, believed to be a transient, was struck about 5:45 a.m. today by a Hyundai sedan traveling north on Las Vegas Boulevard, Trooper Angie Chavera, a spokeswoman for the Nevada Highway Patrol, said.

The pedestrian, whose name was not released this morning, died at the scene. The accident was still under investigation this morning, although preliminary reports indicate pedestrian error was to blame, she said.

The fatality was one of 105 rain-related traffic collisions that occurred in the NHP's jurisdiction overnight, a number that is expected to balloon to more than 200 by Thursday, Chavera said.

"When it rains people wreck," she said. "They just need to slow down."

The figure is a dramatic spike from the 35 normally seen on a Tuesday night and is expected to push the number of crashes this year over last year's 12,139, she said.

Meanwhile Metro Police reported another 382 crashes by 6 a.m. today, a figure department spokesman Officer Jose Montoya said represented a three-fold increase over a typical night.

The Clark County Regional Flood Control District had measured more than two inches of rain fall in several of its gauges throughout the valley since the storm began Tuesday through after 8 a.m. today, including 2.44 inches of rain at the Flamingo Wash gage near Mojave.

Most areas of the Las Vegas Valley received 1.5 to 1.8 inches in the same 24-hour time period.

The Tropicana Detention Basin North Pool contained more than 24 feet of water by 8 a.m. today, more than any other basin in the valley. The Lakes Detention Basin, at the Desert Breeze Park soccer fields, was the second most full, at about 13 feet deep.

At 2:35 a.m., today police had reported four feet of water on Losee Road in eastern Las Vegas. The wash at East Charleston and Nellis boulevards overflowed at 3 a.m., authorities reported.

Leinbach said no large-scale flooding of buildings was reported in the Las Vegas Valley on Tuesday, although the Imperial Palace parking garage flooded as it always does whenever there is any significant amount of rain.

A Clark County Fire Department swift water rescue crew had to pull a white sports utility vehicle out of the rushing waters at Koval Lane and Winnick Avenue behind the Imperial Palace shortly before 5 p.m. No one was injured.

Two tractor-trailers crashed on Interstate 15 at Interstate 215 about 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, shortly after the steady rain began, and those mishaps kept I-15 traffic snarled for most of the afternoon.

Joe Mutch, a sales representative at Big O Tires on West Sahara Avenue, said drivers may discover they need new tires while driving in the rain.

"They come in and say, 'Oh, I'm slipping all over the place,' " he said. "It's because they have bald tires on and didn't know before."

The problem with Las Vegas streets, Mutch said, is the leaked oils that build up on the dry streets and rise to the surface in the occasional rain, creating a slick.

"No matter what tire you have, if you're driving too fast on it and you're coming into a situation, you're going to slide, even if you have the best tires in the world," Mutch said.

Serra Mittler was one of the drivers dealing with hyrdoplaning tires as she drove around town delivering pizzas Tuesday. She said she saw fender benders up and down Interstate 215.

"Most people in Vegas really don't know how to drive," she said.

Mittler said she usually likes being out in the rain, but not the way it was Tuesday.

"One of my windows doesn't roll up in my car so I know exactly how it feels outside," she said. "My car is like soaked."

Chavera said she advises Southern Nevadans to stay home "when roads are like this."

But the rain was causing problems at home for some people as well.

A total of 3,000 Nevada Power Co. customers lost power twice Tuesday afternoon when the rain caused debris to fall into a circuit unit in North Las Vegas, Nevada Power spokeswoman Sonya Headen said.

The first outage occurred at 1:15 p.m. and power was restored at 1:35 p.m., Headen said. The second blackout came at 1:50 p.m. and was restored by 3 p.m.

"Rain isn't too bad, but if we have thunderstorms, electrical equipment and lightning don't like each other," Headen said.

Trouble with a transmission line in Henderson caused a 40-minute blackout Tuesday afternoon that was not related to the winter storm.

About 7,000 Nevada Power customers near Boulder Highway and Lake Mead Drive lost electricity at 1 p.m., but the power was restored by 1:40 p.m., Headen said.

The rain did help many people realize that they needed roof repairs. Above It All Roofing service department manager Andrea Emery said she had "a mountain of calls" Tuesday.

Emery said the Spanish tile roofs that are used throughout the valley seem to be especially susceptible to rainstorms.

"I've been booked solid for the last month," Emery said. "We've still been trying to keep up from the last rain."

Gale Fraser, general manager of the Clark County Regional Flood Control District, said if the rain starts pouring more steadily and begins rapidly filling the county's 416 miles of flood channels and 66 detention basins, the valley could face a flood similar to the flash floods in August 2003, when water rose almost three inches in 90 minutes.

That string of floods capped a particularly wet summer for the Las Vegas Valley, which forced scores of residents from their water-drenched homes.

But winter rain ususally falls slower than the bursts common here during summer months, so it is considered less dangerous than the summer monsoons, he said.

"When we start to get concerned is half an inch an hour," Fraser said. "I don't believe it will (rise that fast) but who knows? We've got a lot out there protecting the area. We hope if there is water on the streets that people avoid it."

The flood control district uses more than 100 rain gauges positioned throughout Clark County to judge how much rain has fallen and how quickly the water levels are rising. It then passes that information on to other government agencies.

One place where the weather caused some to rejoice, however, was Mount Charleston where the snowfall was expected to bring out skiers, snowboards, sledders and snow-ball fighters for many days to come.

More than two feet of snow had fallen at the Las Vegas Ski and Snowboard Resort in Lee Canyon since the beginning of the storm, according to the resort's snow report, and flakes were still falling hard past 9:30 a.m. Earlier 30 mph winds, however, had died down at the mountain top.

The Mt. Charleston Lodge received similar snowfall, office manager Julie Ploeger said.

The storm knocked the lodge's satelite system out, cutting them off from television news, and the power had intermittently been going out, keeping them from checking the weather on the Internet, Ploeger said.

"We feel like we're cut off from the rest of the world," Ploeger said by telephone. "All we can see is the snow."

The National Weather Service extended the winter storm warning for the Spring Mountains, west of the Las Vegas Valley, through 10 a.m. today.

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