HURRICANE, Utah — After severe flooding in Hurricane on Friday brought mud onto roads and into people’s homes, neighbors are helping each other clean up the mess.
Since heavy rains caused the Gould Wash to overflow, 10-year-old Elian Mejia has been helping his parents clean up their home.
“We had to throw away almost everything that was downstairs," he said. “We had to be helping even at night."
Day and night, folks have been forced to clean up their homes.
“This is the contents of our garage, so we're going through it step by step," Kenson Pribyl said. "We had to shovel out and clean out the garage, and now we're cleaning up the stuff and putting it back, for the time being.”
But despite the flooding, Pribyl says he feels lucky.
“Hey, it’s just stuff,” he said.
Especially since his six kids play at the Gould Wash behind his home all the time.
“My whole family’s safe. This doesn’t matter — this can all be replaced," Pribyl said. "My children can’t."
As he continues to clean and count his blessings, his neighbors are giving a helping hand from those who weren’t even affected by the flooding.
“It’s just the right thing to do. I think you should help out your neighbors," Scott Glenn said. "I think it’s just being a good citizen, trying to help where you can... I think if I was in this situation, I would sure appreciate somebody helping me out too.”
And the help doesn’t stop there. Mountain Mike’s Pizza in Hurricane is giving free pizza to people affected by the flooding and those helping them.
“We can’t survive without the community. We won’t be here, we wouldn’t be in business without them, so we need to step up for them," owner Nic Lauritzen said.
Some volunteers living in Hurricane are going to continue to help this neighborhood in the coming days, bringing trailers to help throw away ruined items.
