BEAVER, Utah — The damaging floods tore through the Grove neighborhood in Beaver County in just minutes, and while the nearby river looked tame on Tuesday, it was anything but over the weekend, leaving a path of destruction, with officials believing that recovery could take years.
"All I could see was logs. I couldn't see water," said Stefanie Mangum. "The noise was the scariest thing I've ever experienced. It felt like a thunderstorm under your feet."
As the river surged, Mangum kept recording. She had come to help family friends who were out of town, moving their dogs and horses to safety. Then the water crossed the bank, taking a shed and a mobile home with it.
"Don't come higher. Don't come higher," Mangum recalled saying. "When it started going into the neighbor's home... that's when I got sick."
That neighbor's home was hit hard, with its windows blown out and a gap where a door once stood.
"We could see their couches and dressers, and stuff start to float. Then everything from their home started coming out," Mangum said.
Residents affected by Beaver flooding now in race against next round of storms:
The scale of the damage really comes into focus from above as drone video shows a wide path of mud and debris cutting through the Grove neighborhood where city leaders say about 200 homes were impacted.
But the destruction didn't end there. State Route 153 through Beaver Canyon is now closed indefinitely after floodwaters washed out multiple sections of the highway.
For Becky Parkinson, getting home meant a 13-hour drive after seeing Mangum's video and not knowing what she would find.
"We had a shed over here. That's completely gone. We can't even find it down the river," she said.
Parkinson and her family have been cleaning almost nonstop since Sunday, all without water or gas.
Despite the hardships and damage, and more storms in the forecast, Parkinson said they're staying.
"When we know that we're threatened, we'll go," she shared.
Until then, the family continues to clear debris as they try to keep the water moving, while keeping one eye on the river and the other on the sky.
