Search to resume for groundskeeper missing after flood

Rescuers plan to resume their search today for a groundskeeper who can't swim and may have been swept away by floodwaters Tuesday while driving a tractor at the Desert Rose Golf Course.

The search was called off Wednesday afternoon because floodwaters were just too deep and the conditions simply too hazardous in the low-lying southeast valley, where rainwater accumulates and empties into the Las Vegas Wash.

"We're going to be back out there ... and we're looking to use dogs and looking to use horses," said Bill Cassell, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Police Department.

"It'd gotten to the point where we had to suspend operations," he said Wednesday. "The rescuers were out there in extreme and difficult conditions for many hours, wading through mud and muck that was knee-deep."

Calletano Lopez, 38, was last heard from by co-workers at 4:15 p.m., when they called him on his cellphone and asked him to come back to the clubhouse when floodwaters started to rise rapidly. Witnesses told police the waters topped out as high as 12 feet.

Although rescuers still hold out hope, the reality is that the search and rescue has become a recovery effort, given the amount of time that has lapsed, said Laura Meltzer, a police spokeswoman.

"They do not believe they will find this person alive at this point," she said.

Throngs of city, county and flood control officials were out in full force Wednesday, assessing the damage from the deluge, which over a span of a couple of hours Tuesday afternoon dumped enough rain to set a record.

The valley's official weather station at McCarran International Airport logged 1.18 inches, surpassing the 0.61 inches of rain that fell Sept. 11, 1998. It also was the most rainfall recorded for any day in the month of September in the Las Vegas Valley, dating to 1937, according to the National Weather Service.

That's roughly a quarter of the rainfall Las Vegas traditionally receives in an entire year, weather experts said.

The drenching was the second to hit Las Vegas in less than a month.

The last storm occurred on Aug. 22, unleashing 1.65 inches of rain and claiming the life of 17-year-old Green Valley High School senior William Mootz. He was swept away in the Pittman Wash floodwaters in Henderson while out with a couple of friends.

Tuesday's storm was the result of an upper level disturbance that started in south central California, then blew across Southern Nevada.

It shut down roads, closed the Las Vegas Beltway at Interstate 15 and spawned lightning so severe that fueling operations were suspended at McCarran International Airport and incoming flights were delayed for up to a half hour.

The Regional Justice Center experienced major flooding, as did a University of Nevada, Las Vegas parking lot near the Thomas & Mack Center. Charleston Boulevard was closed in both directions east of I-15.

Such back-to-back, storms are "unusual but not abnormal" for the monsoon season," which generally ends right around now, in mid-September, said Reid Wolcott, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

"In order to get thunderstorms like these you need a few ingredients, and we had a pretty good setup: a lot of moisture and an upper level disturbance," Wolcott said. "Think about that upper level disturbance as the finger on the trigger of a gun that causes the thunderstorms."

In one southeast valley neighborhood, fire officials went door to door, asking residents to leave their homes because flooding may have damaged their electrical systems.

Next to the golf course on Walton Heath Avenue, south of Sahara Avenue and east of Nellis Boulevard, the river of brown water from Tuesday had given way to work trucks, hard hats and caked mud.

Workers scooped muck-covered rocks. Homeowners hosed down garage floors and driveways. Dining room sets and other family belongings dried in the sun.

Clark County Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani stopped by the neighborhood, offering support to residents standing on soggy carpets and muddy walkways.

One of those constituents, Mary Bobier, tried to keep a positive attitude while her husband, Gary Bobier, cleaned the garage. Four inches of floodwater had seeped inside her home.

"I keep telling my neighbors, 'We're all OK. That's all that matters,' " she told Giunchigliani.

In her 16 years in the house, the 59-year-old had never seen flooding like she saw Tuesday afternoon.

Neither had her neighbor, Marcelo Molina, a 10-year resident on Walton Heath.

"Disastrous," Molina said while puffing on a cigarette in his garage.

The 69-year-old retiree watched as the floodwaters climbed at the golf course behind his house and spilled over the wall onto his back porch. Then he watched the river in the street rise up his driveway and into his garage.

"I tried to put towels, but, bah, a losing battle," he said. "It just kept coming in."

He spent much of the night cleaning what he could. But his carpet is trashed, and his wedding photos and other pictures are ruined. He is worried about mold.

But Molina, like most of his neighbors, has no flood insurance, so he is waiting to see what damage he will have to pay for himself.

"It's just really frustrating," he said of the situation.

Officials at the Clark County Regional Flood Control District were aware of potential flood danger at Desert Rose Golf Course and the surrounding neighborhood.

In June, the district board set aside $35 million for flood improvements along the Las Vegas Wash and at the golf course.

District General Manager Gale Fraser said Desert Rose already serves as a stormwater channel, but it doesn't have the capacity to handle major flood events. Work there is expected to take about five years to complete, he said.

There was good news from the district: The community's existing network of storm drains and flood channels worked as designed despite one of the wettest monsoon seasons that Fraser has seen in more than two decades in Southern Nevada.

"The force of this water is absolutely unbelievable," he said. "It's not a novelty. You have to respect it."

Damon Hodge, a spokesman for the Nevada Department of Transportation, said the system at the Charleston Boulevard underpass was overwhelmed.

"As you know, the underpass has a long history of flooding. Some improvements were made a few years ago, but sometimes the rain volume simply overwhelms the pumps and drainage system. This was the case with yesterday's flash flooding," he said.

At the Regional Justice Center, Assistant County Manager Randy Tarr said officials were inspecting the roof on Wednesday, but he didn't think the water that gushed into the lobby Tuesday was the result of faulty building construction.

Tarr said the unusual amount of rainfall was just too much for the roof's drainage system. It wasn't known Wednesday how much it would cost to repair the damage caused by the rain.

UNLV spokesman Tony Allen said Wednesday that most of the flood damage had been cleared at the school. The campus should be fully back to normal by the end of the week, he said.

There was significant flooding in the parking lot outside the Thomas & Mack Center. He said about 30 cars were damaged when water from Swenson Street surged into the lot. The drainage system was overwhelmed, Allen said.

"Because of the severe flooding on Swenson, it overflowed into that area," he said.

The Regional Flood Control District maintains a series of rain gauges throughout the valley. One, on Swenson between Flamingo Road and Tropicana Boulevard, recorded the heaviest rainfall in the valley, more than 2 inches.

Allen said other flood damage on campus was minor.

Review-Journal writers Henry Brean, Richard Lake, Francis McCabe and Lawrence Mower contributed to this report.