TOOELE COUNTY, Utah — Stansbury Park residents spent Sunday cleaning up after heavy rain caused flooding across much of Tooele County and Salt Lake County on Saturday, damaging dozens of homes.
Resident Julia Romano and her husband were in Las Vegas for a Paul McCartney concert when they got a call from their neighbor.
“She said, 'Your couch is starting to pick up,'" Romano, a Stansbury Park resident of 30 years, told FOX 13 News.
Her neighbor checked their home while they were out of town, finding Romano's garage and basement already underwater.
“She put us on FaceTime and said, 'I can’t even, it’s completely soaked in here, squishy water soaked,'" she explained.
They rushed back home Saturday evening to check the damage. On Sunday, they spent the afternoon with their neighbors, ripping out their carpet and salvaging what they could.
“You can see here, it’s probably about 15 inches," Romano said while using a tape measure inside their garage. "You can tell; water was up against the garage too — about 17 inches.”
The Romanos live at the end of a cul-de-sac, the lowest point on their street, where all the runoff tends to collect.
“The drainage in front of our house is not adequate, so everyone's debris and runoff came down our driveway," she said. "We have a French drain here that got overwhelmed.”
Romano says that when they moved into their home in 1993, they didn’t think flooding would be an issue. She says a similar storm hit their area about two years ago.
“We put a lot of money into making changes to our driveway. We added a new French drain. We have done everything as homeowners; now it’s up to them to get this fixed," she said.
Brittany Lopez, an assistant county manager for Tooele County, said in a statement on Sunday: "The storm we experienced yesterday was an unusually severe event — what's often called a '100-year storm.' These types of storms are not typical, and they can temporarily exceed the capacity of even well-designed systems."
American Red Cross volunteers distributed cleanup kits to people impacted by the flooding in Tooele County and Salt Lake County over the weekend. For those who have been impacted and need help, contact the Red Cross at 1-800-733-2767.
“It was horrible," Romano said. "I feel like this could have been prevented."
