Wednesday, Jan. 12, 2005 | 11:26 a.m.
OVERTON -- Ron Ward admits to being a spiritual man, fond of interspersing religious references amid stories of his days working in the engine rooms of countless U.S. Navy destroyers.
But even as repeated flood warnings threatened his newly built Overton home, Ward said it would be inappropriate to ask God to spare the tidy, ranch-style home he shares with his wife of 35 years.
"I got down on my knees this morning and thanked the Lord, not to ask him to save my house," Ward said. "But hopefully he got the hint."
Ward and his wife's home were among the approximately 325 in Overton where authorities had recommended evacuation as high waters from the nearby Muddy River continued to encroach on the sleepy town this morning.
By Tuesday evening, waters on the Muddy River roughly four miles from Ward's home had begun rising two feet every 10 minutes, a rate county officials said meant it could crest by 5 p.m.
But at 7 this morning, Ward's home was still dry as the waters had not crept into his neighborhood of mobile homes and yet unbuilt single-story houses.
By 9:30 this morning, business owners on Main Street scrambled to put sandbags in front of their stores and offices as forecasters predicted the waters would likely flood Overton's main thoroughfare this afternoon.
Stacey Welling, a Clark County spokeswoman, said another large water flow is expected to come down the muddy river through town between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. today.
The Clark County Regional Flood Control District early this morning released a small amount of water from the Echo Dam, which had filled to capacity overnight, Welling said. That release flowed through the Muddy River but did not have "a sizable impact" on the amount of water flowing through Overton this morning, she said.
Sheetmetal worker Mike Hanley and about a dozen other Overton residents watched this morning as the waters continued to rise in the neighborhood near the center of town.
Floodwaters on Cooper Street forced him, his three children and their chocolate Labrador retriever Bristol from their home at about 5 a.m. today.
"I fell asleep on watch (Tuesday night) and it was still dry," said Hanley, who had a neighbor knock on his door at about 1 a.m. "I decided to leave while my two-wheel drive (truck) could get out."
Others, including mechanic Mark Harris, decided to stay in their homes in the flooded neighborhood this morning. Harris, reached by phone this morning, reported about nine inches of standing water in his yard on Robison Avenue just off Cooper Street.
No water had reached inside the house yet as he and his family had positioned about 200 sandbags around the property Tuesday night. He said he had no plans to leave.
"I'm not going nowhere, and the house isn't going nowhere," he said of the cinder-block structure. "We'll just have to clean it as best as we can."
About 10 to 12 homes near the town's main thoroughfare had to be evacuated this morning because of rising water, Erik Pappa, a Clark County spokesman, said.
"The question is how much higher it will rise," he said. "We're seeing streets being flooded now that weren't flooded earlier."
Pappa said county officials had not yet assessed the damage this morning, but said most homes that were damaged saw water only in their garages or basements. No injuries had been reported.
He said authorities were also keeping a worried eye on Echo Dam in Lincoln County north of the area. The water level behind the dam was only a foot from spilling over this morning, and if it did that water was expected to run down into the Muddy River.
The Muddy River normally spans about eight feet in Overton, but officials estimated it could swell to 200 feet across.
The flooding Tuesday night and early this morning came a day after flood waters forced about 25 Mesquite residents from their houses and damaged a number of mobile homes near the Virgin River, which grew to almost a mile wide Monday night. The river stayed mostly quiet Tuesday, Mayor Bill Nicholes said.
Meanwhile the Mesquite City Council voted Tuesday morning to declare a state of emergency, following the Clark County declaration made that morning, as another 150 residents left their homes in a low-lying southeastern section of the city that night.
In Overton, Ward, who in October moved from Moreno Valley, Calif., to the corner of northeast Clark County, spent Monday afternoon piling sandbags outside his three-car garage.
His stack of donated sandbags -- among the estimated 15,000 distributed to the community by several county agencies -- was only two bags high but the retired Navy man was counting on his training in keeping the military's warships dry, having devised a plastic-membrane around the sandbags using sheeting he bought at a local hardware store.
The key, he said, is not the height but rather packing the bags tight enough to keep water from seeping in.
"I had a little water-tight integrity training in the Navy," he said while unloading his beige Toyota pickup Tuesday afternoon. "Other than that I haven't done a whole lot. Hopefully the water won't go in."
The threat was enough for retired Las Vegas real estate agent and Overton resident Lewan Elder to drive her motorhome to the Overton Latter-day Saints stake center, which became a makeshift emergency shelter for people whose homes were expected to be in the flood's path.
Residents were shuttled by bus to the shelter, which reached its capacity of 175 about 5 p.m. Tuesday, before a second was opened at the Moapa Valley High School, located nearby.
Elder, a widow who moved to Overton four years ago and lives year-round about two blocks from the river, packed only food she bought that morning and her beloved Yorkshire Terrier and Poodle mix "Hillary" to the stake center, although she planned to sleep in the RV.
"I didn't know what to do," she said Tuesday morning. "But I think I'd rather stay out here so she (her dog) isn't alone."
Aside from her collection of dozens of inexpensive watches costing between $10 and $20 each, which she said she enjoys because "they're a good value," Elder said she did not worry about any damage her home might sustain.
As residents like Elder trickled into the center Tuesday, Red Cross volunteer and 42-year Overton resident Arden Ishimoto was often the first person they spoke to.
Ishimoto spent the day checking residents into the stake center, doing everything from arranging food deliveries to monitoring traffic flow outside. It was enough to keep the 76-year-old volunteer, who scolded evacuated residents for underestimating the day's blue skies, from arranging for her own home to be sandbagged, she said.
"I hope I'm OK," Ishimoto, whose home suffered significant damage in a similar flood in 1983, said.
The not-quite-retired volunteer, who lived through the flood in 1983 and another in 1991, was the closest thing to a flood expert for many of the displaced residents.
"I go with whatever the flow is," she said. "I've see this river rage before and it's not fun."
Hanley, who lives in "Stringtown," a cluster of modest homes in a low-lying part of Overton supposedly named for the straight line on which they sit, only moved to the town from Las Vegas six months ago. He and his family spent most of Tuesday sandbagging their home and helping neighbors sandbag theirs.
Neither he nor Ward have flood insurance, both men said.
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