Wednesday, February 23, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Heavy rains flood cemetery

Floodwaters cover grave markers, tilt headstones

Water from heavy rains covers graves at Palm Northwest Cemetery on Jones Boulevard. Photo by Jane Kalinowsky

Floodwaters from the rainstorm on Monday and Tuesday covered grave markers, tilted headstones and appeared to have caved in a grave or two at Palm Northwest Cemetery on Jones Boulevard.

"It is despicable for something like this to happen," said Kerry Keltner, who has a friend buried at the cemetery. "It's disgraceful. It really is."

Several inches of water covered parts of the cemetery, which has about 1,000 graves.

"The graves are sinking," said Mishon Randall, whose father was buried there two years ago. "I really feel sorry for the people who just buried a loved one and now they have to deal with this."

Palm Mortuary spokesman Ned Phillips said the company spent all day Tuesday pumping water from the cemetery. He blamed the flooding on an intense amount of rain and on nearby construction.

"My phone has been ringing off the hook all day. This is the wettest winter ever in Las Vegas, but we have never had this problem before."

Phillips suggested water was pushed into the path of the 40-acre graveyard by new development projects nearby.

"Because of the development to the north and west, the water is now coming on our property," he said. "The new development has affected the water coming in our direction."

Phillips said he doesn't know how much it will cost to repair damage from the flooding. Cemetery staff will have to remove mud, reseed some areas, possibly reset crooked grave markers and repair sinkage near grave sites, he said.

Because the dead are buried in either concrete boxes or sealed vaults, there is no worry that graves will be uprooted by the flooding. Phillips said he did not know how many graves were flooded.

Jennifer Sizemore, a spokeswoman for the Clark County Health District, said the agency isn't concerned about the spread of disease from the graveyard because of the steps taken to preserve a person's body before being buried.

Phillips said this was the first time the cemetery flooded since it was built in 1998.

But Lisa Shields, whose husband, Robert, died a year ago Tuesday, said this was the second or third time the cemetery has flooded since her husband's death.

"It does upset me," she said as she and family members visited her husband's grave.

"We came here and we can't even get up to the grave to say a prayer," she said.

Her husband's gravestone was covered in mud and was virtually inaccessible Tuesday afternoon because of the soggy grass.

She was particularly upset, she said, because the gravestone has a picture of her husband in it, and her three young children like to look at the photo.

"So for them, they relate to the picture and now they can't even do that," she said.

"They should have some type of flood drainage channel," said Robert's mother, Kristina Shields.

Keltner, whose friend is buried there, said the same thing.

"You'd think they would have had some kind of an idea this could happen," he said. "I mean, the northwest has been notorious for flooding anyway."

Gale Fraser, general manager of the Clark County Regional Flood Control District, said flood-control channels were recently built south of the graveyard, but they don't protect the cemetery from rainfall northwest of its location.

The city of Las Vegas and the Flood Control District have plans for flood-control improvements in the area just north of the cemetery, he said, but they may not be built for several years.

The overall plan is expected to cost more than $50 million and will include two detention basins south of Floyd Lamb State Park, and a flood-control channel that would run east-to-west along Elkhorn Road and north-to-south on Decatur north of the Las Vegas Beltway, Fraser said.

"They're studying this whole area between the Beltway and Floyd Lamb State Park," he said. "I know we have money programmed for that area in the next 10 years."