Repairs to streets, drains expected to cost thousands

Stephen Curran

Thursday, Dec. 30, 2004 | 11:16 a.m.

Cleaning up and repairing streets and drainage systems in the wake of the rains that have rolled in at the end of the year will cost tens of thousands of dollars, officials say.

Maintenance crews from the Clark County Department of Public Works stayed busy Wednesday as flooded roadways prompted the closure of at least nine area intersections and made countless other streets impassable.

All told, roughly 160 county employees working extended shifts were dispatched Wednesday to keep tabs on the rising waters, Bobby Shelton, a spokesman for county public works, said.

The county earmarks a portion of its roughly $13 million annual budget each year to clean and repair roads dirtied or damaged in flood seasons, he said.

That pool of money is then used to pay for materials and overtime salaries for employees who clean debris off flooded roads and perform repairs on county-owned facilities, Shelton said.

The exact amount of money spent to repair flood-related damage in previous years was not available Wednesday, but county officials estimate previous large-scale floods have run "upwards of $100,000" in materials costs and overtime salaries.

County employees spent Wednesday in smaller crews, some only one or two people, removing debris in areas where water levels had already dropped. Overtime costs were expected to be minimal Wednesday as the rains caused little significant damage to county property, he said.

"Everybody's at work, just like a normal day," Shelton said. "That's what we do, maintain the roadways. They'll clean up the water until it stops running."

The cost of cleaning the damage from this most recent string of downpours is expected to pale in comparison to those that blanketed the valley in August 2003, the wettest in recent history.

Those summer storms and the flash floods that followed cost the county more than $100,000, as some worked 24-hour shifts closing additional roads and preparing to clean debris from others, Shelton said.

Like its regular annual budget, most of the funds used to repair damaged county facilities come from gasoline taxes; other costs are paid through the Clark County Regional Flood Control District's annual maintenance work program, he said.

This year, the maintenance work program accounted for $6.2 million of the flood control district's roughly $70 million annual budget, Gale Fraser, general manager of the flood control district, said.

That money, earmarked every July based on requests from county and city governments, is used to clean and repair existing flood control infrastructure thoughout the county, he said.

Because the maintenance program represents an ongoing process, Fraser said he did not know how much of that fund is used to clean up flood-related damage.

"A storm event may increase it a little big but not that much," he said. "It's imperative to fund the maintenance work program to make sure our drainage works as it should. We want to make sure our investment in the capital improvement program is taken care of for the future."

The flood control district uses about 100 rain gauges positioned throughout the county to judge how much rain has fallen and how quickly the water levels in its 416 miles of flood channel and 66 detention basins are rising, Fraser said.

The channels and detention basins represent part of the agency's long-term capital improvement program to control flooding in the valley. The plan, expected to be carried out over the next 25 to 30 years, is about half completed, he said.

Unlike this week's ongoing rainstorms, last year's summer rains came at a rate of almost one inch every half an hour.

The rain is not expected to fall that rapidly this week, although the Clark County Fire Department stayed busy Tuesday and Wednesday, responding to 29 swift-water rescues from cars that had become stuck in deep water, Bob Leinbach, a spokesman for the fire department, said.

The cost of performing a swift-water rescue, which normally can be done with a six-person crew on a fire engine, is minimal, as all firefighters are trained to safely remove people from deep water and the maneuvers rarely require overtime pay, Leinbach said.

"They get paid the same if they do 30 rescues or fight two fires," he said.

In addition, each station has the necessary equipment to perform such rescues, which can be the costliest part as the high waters can wear the apparatus, Leinbach said.

And the construction-laden southwestern part of the valley will likely see its share of flooding, Shelton said.

The wood and construction equipment often strewn about new home developments springing up in the area can clog the few storm drains in a neighborhood and worsen flooding, he said.

Most often, Shelton said, the private developers face no criminal or civil action if drains become clogged, as building materials or construction equipment can be difficult to trace back to a specific builder.

"As far as having any kind of penalty, it's hard to tell unless it says (the company's name) right on it," he said. "It's just one of those nuisance things."