ST. GEORGE, Utah — St. George residents are making way for the water to come.
"So anytime that we see rain in the forecast we go out and make sure storm drains are clean," said Hayden Roberts, Supervisor with the Hurricane Streets Department.
This was the scene in Hurricane back in August when stormwaters flooded Gould Wash, covering some communities with mud.
WATCH | From Hurricane to St. George, homeowners and businesses prep for storm
Hurricane Street Crews tell me a focus ahead of the weekend is the Marla Wash for Dixie Springs — responsible for draining into the detention basin.
"We're just making sure that's open and clean and the water can flow," Roberts said.
Crews tell me tumbleweeds and other debris needs to be cleared out here from this ditch — mere feet from precious property — ahead of the heavy rain in the forecast.
"We're just preparing for a normal rain so we'll have crews out monitoring the situation," Roberts said.
Meanwhile in St. George, a different kind of digging is underway by homeowners and business owners to build sand bag stacked barriers against projected flood waters.
"With how much rain is projected it will likely be worse than the last year," said Robert Cherpaski of St. George.
Robert Cherpaski of St. George isn't just filling these bags with sand — but hope.
"Right now we're just getting the sand bags to fill in right there hopefully it won't flood this year," said Cherpaski. "Almost covered the on ramps to State Route 7 so we couldn't leave either."
He says these sand bags are a big line of defense against water that can do a lot of damage — that he and his family don't want to deal with again.
"Be prepared it can happen with any storm. the storm a couple years ago no one expected it to be big. It filled the parks over by our house it filled the irrigation systems," Cherpaski shared.