Thursday, January 13, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

SOUTHERN NEVADA FLOODING: WASHED OUT

Air tour reveals damage

An aerial view of Overton Wednesday shows buildings and other property submerged in floodwaters from the Muddy River. Photo by Gary Thompson. Rail cars lie scattered in the Meadow Valley Wash about 40 miles south of Caliente after floodwaters washed the tracks out from under the train while it was parked. A Union Pacific Railroad official said one of the derailed cars contained kitchen appliances and the other 25 were empty. Photo by Gary Thompson. Click image for enlargement. An Ely-based inmate work crew from the Nevada Division of Forestry fills sandbags Wednesday in Caliente. The Lincoln County town of about 1,200 people was hit Tuesday by what residents are calling the worst flood since 1938. Photo by Gary Thompson. From the air, the Muddy River looks more like a lake as it floods homes in Overton Wednesday. Photo by Gary Thompson.

Seen from the air Wednesday, a wide swath of Southern Nevada fit into two categories: where the water was and where it had already been.

The first stop on the six-hour helicopter tour was Overton, where by 10 a.m. the aptly named Muddy River was turning much of the town into a mocha-colored mess.

As people watched from high ground, the fast-moving water churned down-slope toward Lake Mead, inundating entire neighborhoods. Homes, cars and trampolines were among the only man-made objects breaching the vast expanse of water.

From there, the tour turned north to Mesquite, where things were drying out as the Virgin River continued to recede. The high-water mark was obvious even from the air. The river was bracketed by a wide path of muddy ground, which spilled onto the streets of several new-looking neighborhoods.

As the helicopter flew north through Rainbow Canyon to the Lincoln County community of Caliente, the road and rail line below vanished and reappeared like a dotted line. Large sections of pavement and track had been covered in silt or eaten away completely by the swollen Meadow Valley Wash.

Near a spot on the map called Carp, railroad maintenance vehicles clustered around a stretch of track that sagged over empty space. In a half-dozen other places, rail cars had been trapped in the canyon when floodwaters damaged the rails in front and behind them.

Caliente, which on Tuesday was nearly cut off from the outside world when water threatened its two bridges, appeared unaffected from the air Wednesday. But upon landing, the damage became apparent.

The raging water had found its way into at least six houses on the streets closest to the wash. At least one manufactured home, about two miles up Clover Creek Canyon, was destroyed, and the 40-foot storage bin parked next to it was deposited a quarter-mile downstream.

The flood arrived at Evan Schimbeck's house at about 6:30 a.m. Tuesday.

Within minutes, Schimbeck's wife and three daughters were headed for higher ground with a few of their most prized possessions, namely photo albums, scrapbooks and American Girl dolls.

Schimbeck said he spent the rest of Tuesday shoveling dirt and hefting sand bags as he and about 20 other people fought to protect the homes closest to the wash.

Volunteer firefighter Rhett Butler was part of the group. He was shoveling dirt onto an earthen dike late Tuesday morning when he saw the water rise suddenly in a way he did not expect. "You could see six more inches coming down the wash like a stair," he said.

Schimbeck said he was standing in his own yard when the wash punched through and began to pour into his basement. "I tried to stop it. That was just worthless," he said.

Within 10 minutes, the basement was shin deep in water, and by day's end, an attached below-ground storage area was filled to a depth of 4 1/2 feet.

The water destroyed a big-screen television and some couches and carried off tools. The splintered shell of a shed was left where two cords of firewood used to be stacked in the corner of Schimbeck's yard.

His back lawn and garden were buried beneath 2 feet of silt.

Though he couldn't say for sure, Schimbeck guessed his house sustained the most damage of any in his neighborhood. "That's what everyone is telling me," he said with a smile and a shrug. "Nobody died, nobody got hurt. I didn't lose anything that can't be replaced."

At the city's makeshift incident command center inside the historic Caliente railroad depot, city spokesman Bryan Elkins described one of the flood's most dramatic moments: the arrival Tuesday night of three Pavehawk helicopters from Nellis Air Force Base.

Using an Air Force C-130 tanker to refuel in midair, the helicopters evacuated 120 juvenile offenders and 20 staff members from the state-run Caliente Youth Center, which was cut off by rising floodwaters created by melting snow.

Elkins said the Meadows Valley Wash drains 2,500 square miles and Clover Creek drains about 600 square miles of mountains and high desert north of Caliente. The two come together right in front of the youth center.

By the time the flood crested Tuesday afternoon, Meadows Valley Wash was running about 18 feet higher than usual, he said.

After being airlifted, the teens were put on school buses and driven to the nearby town of Panaca, where they spent the night at the high school.

They returned to the center Wednesday morning.

Elkins said the helicopters from Nellis brought about 25,000 empty sandbags to help Caliente beat back the water. An Ely-based inmate work crew from the Nevada Division of Forestry filled several thousand of the bags with sand Wednesday.

From Caliente, the return flight south followed the Meadow Valley Wash all the way to the spot near Glendale where it joins the Muddy River.

Along the way, the helicopter circled a nasty train derailment in southern Lincoln County, a few miles north of the Clark County line. The locomotive remained on the tracks, but 26 of its rail cars had been dumped into the wash when the flood pulled the track out from under them.

One rail car could be seen hundreds of yards downstream from the derailment.

Union Pacific Railroad officials originally hoped they would be able to reopen the line through Rainbow Canyon by today. Now railroad officials can't say when trains will be running through there again.

"We did a helicopter survey and found extensive damage all up and down the canyon in addition to the derailed train," said John Bromley, spokesman for Union Pacific. "We don't have an estimate on how long it's going to take us to reopen, but it's going to be a considerable interruption there."

By 2 p.m., the helicopter was back over Overton, where human activity had increased considerably since the morning.

Emergency vehicles and residents in large pickups crept down submerged streets. On one badly flooded block, two people accompanied by a dog paddled an inflatable boat toward a raised berm where several trucks had parked.

As pilot Mike Krott turned back toward Las Vegas, he pointed out another boat farther downstream, still strapped to its trailer. As the helicopter turned overhead, the empty boat began to sink into the dark brown muck.