COTTONWOOD HEIGHTS, Utah — A Cottonwood Heights family is out of their home after nearly four feet of water filled the basement during Thursday night’s powerful storm, for the third time now.
Josh and Annie Condas were at Zion National Park when a neighbor called to tell them their home on Scottish Drive was flooding.
Video taken during the storm shows water filling the basement. The couple drove about five hours home and spent hours removing the water.
By Friday morning, the standing water was gone, but a water line remained nearly 4 feet high on the basement walls.
“It blasted through these two back bedroom windows with such force that it actually ripped the closed door off its hinges and blew it through the house,” Josh Condas said.
The water filled a large daylight window well before breaking through basement windows. Three bedrooms, two offices and years of belongings were damaged or destroyed.
“We lost our offices, all of our kids’ toys, our valuables, wedding dresses, antique stuff we inherited from past grandparents that have passed,” Condas said. “It’s all gone.”
Powerful storm hits the Salt Lake Valley
The Condases were among families across parts of the Salt Lake Valley dealing with damage Friday after heavy rain overwhelmed streets and drainage systems.
Sandy Mayor Monica Zoltanski said nearly every neighborhood in her city was affected and that preliminary information indicates the storm could ultimately qualify as a 100-year storm.
“The numbers are still coming in, but I think this will shape up to be considered a 100-year storm,” Zoltanski said.
For the Condases, descriptions of an unusually powerful storm sound familiar.
“Last time I asked, they said that it was just a freak storm,” Josh Condas said.
FOX 13 investigated flooding on Scottish Drive in 2019
FOX 13 investigated flooding on the same Cottonwood Heights street in 2019.
The Condases said their house flooded during that event before they owned it. They said the property flooded again in 2023 and now for a third time in 2026.
In 2021, Cottonwood Heights instituted a stormwater fee to help fund upgrades to the city’s stormwater system.
Cottonwood Heights Mayor Gay Lynn Bennion told FOX 13 Friday that work on the system is continuing. They acknowledged that the drainage infrastructure serving this area has not yet caught up with improvements elsewhere.
“This is an area where they have been working, but this particular drain and stormwater system is behind where they had been working under the road,” Bennion said.
Bennion said some of the city’s stormwater infrastructure is old and that updating the larger system will take time.
“We’re still updating that system,” Bennion said. “It’s going to take years to do and more funds to do it sooner would be prudent.”
Bennion said she believes the city should increase stormwater fees to accelerate those improvements.
The mayor’s comments provide some answers for homeowners who want to know why they are facing flooding again years after the problem first drew attention.
For Annie Condas, the latest damage is a painful repeat.
“Here we are again,” she said.
Family unsure whether it will return
The flooding reached the home’s utilities, leaving the house without electricity, gas or air conditioning.
The Condases said they are trying to determine what it will cost to fix. Until then, they’re making other arrangements.
“It’s unlivable, so we’re gonna try and move in with family, it’s going to take a long time to get this fixed,” Josh Condas said.
The family also faces a larger decision after the third flood at the property.
They don’t yet know whether they will return.
“We don’t know,” Condas said. “We got to figure out how we get made whole and figure out how the city is going to remediate, and then we’ll go from there.”
