Utah prepares for first major warm weather threat

MIDVALE, Utah – With shovels and gloves in hand, volunteers filled hundreds of sandbags Friday at the Salt Lake County Flood Control Shed located at 604 West 6960 South in Midvale.

‘I’m concerned about my family and my own house, but everybody needs the help, I just happened to be somebody that had a free day,” volunteer Jaime Phair said after she traveled from Provo to Midvale to fill sandbags. “I just feel like it’s a worth wild thing to do.”

Phair was one of several members of the Utah Air National Guard who spent their day off filling sandbags at the flood control shed. He worked alongside volunteer John Hammer, who lives near Emigration Creek.

“Not too many places in the world where you find people who take the day off work and a paycheck to come here and volunteer,” Hammer said.

Headed into the first real stretch of warm weather, Salt Lake County Emergency Management has identified four creeks of flooding concern: City Creek, Emigration Creek, Parley’s Creek, and Mill Creek.

Emmigration Creek flooded Wasatch Hollow Park earlier this month.

“The fact that we’ve got citizens out here filling additional bags and we will continue to increase the amount of sandbags like we’ve got coming in right now makes me feel that much better about our preparation efforts for not just this coming weekend with the two or three days warm up were going to have but long term through the whole season,” Clint Mecham, Salt Lake County Emergency Management Director said.

Mecham said the county currently has 15,000 filled sandbags stored in its Midvale shed ready to be deployed in a flood emergency, with another 360,000 bags ready to be filled. Those who would like to fill those bags are being asked to volunteer on Saturday at the shed between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m.

“The hope is, with mother nature’s help, we can keep the water inside the banks and again, they may be very very full but if we can keep the water inside the channels that’s what we’re hoping for, if it comes outside of the channels were ready to respond to that with our municipal level partners,” said Mecham.

Click here for more information from Salt Lake County about flood preparation.