Flash flood rushes through Herriman, several homes soaked

HERRIMAN, Utah — Herriman residents are drying out, after rain soaked home basements and sent a flash flood ripping through town.

A cold, muddy creek sprang up out of nowhere in the normally dry bed of Midas Creek.

In a video tweeted by the city, muddy brown water rapidly flowed down the normally dry creek bed. A couch was also seen being carried away by the intense water.

Midas Creek runs between 11800 South and 12600 South from the Copper Creek area towards Bacchus Highway or State Route 111.

The purpose of the Midas Creek area is to easily divert excess water. After it flooded Thursday, several families came out to look at the damage left behind.

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Marlee Thomas, her three children and niece were in awe of the sight.
"We've never, seriously have never, seen the smallest drop of water in here," Thomas said, of the dry creekbed. "So it's crazy to see it."

The water destroyed part of the paved walking path along the creek, and left debris in its place. The debris flow tore down part of a fence, and buckled concrete. The section of the path that runs under 5600 West is closed until further notice.

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"This really shows me that there is a lot of water-- which is good, because we need it," Thomas said. "But we did not... yeah, we did not expect it to be this much."

FOX 13

Neighbors jumped in with buckets to help out after basements and backyards flooded near Midas Creek. Homeowners said the downpour pooled up in window wells, seeping inside.

"We have some missionaries that live in our basement and they came running up, and pounding on our door, saying that their room was flooding," Sheri Robinson recounted. "And, came down to see that the window well was totally full."

She said one of the missionaries got close to the window well, and sank down in the mud to his waist. The garden bed seemed to turn to quicksand from the rain and flooding. He used a bucket to bail water out from the window well.

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Inside, they pulled up the carpet, which became soaked from the flooding.

"A lot of the neighbors just came running as soon as they saw that we needed help," Robinson said. "They grabbed buckets and came running over, and it was really a neighborhood and community effort."

In addition to helping her, Robinson and others jumped in to help other homeowners near them clean up water. Fox 13 talked to a few homeowners who reported that flooding damage was minimal, and much of it was cleaned up by Thursday evening.

Sheri Robinson

In a video sent to FOX 13 by viewer Veronica Cárdenas Guerrero, flooding can also be seen in the fields of Bastian Elementary School, located at 5692 W Big Bend Park Drive in Herriman.

Earlier Thursday, the Salt Lake City office of the National Weather Service said urban and small stream flooding was expected in parts of Salt Lake County until 3:45 p.m. The area saw more than an inch of rain, most of it in the time span of less than an hour.

The flooding comes as Utah sees rain showers for the first time in weeks.