HURRICANE, Utah — A plan to prevent the flooding that devastated neighborhoods near Gould Wash in Hurricane was already in the works — but it came too late for homeowners hit last Friday.
The flooding was not a surprise to engineers.
A final environmental impact statement, signed off on in March by Hurricane City, Washington County, and the U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service, includes maps showing potential damage in places impacted by the flash flood that swept into town.
The maps show current flood risk in color-coded zones: areas in blue face slight flooding, areas in yellow could see 1 to 3 feet of water, and areas in red could see 3 or more feet of water in a 100-year flood event.
A second map in the same document shows what flood risk would look like after proposed improvements — Gould Wash expanded and reinforced as a channel capable of handling up to 3,000 cubic feet of water per second, or CFS. That is comparable to the flow of the Colorado River in the Moab area in early summer.
Hurricane community comes together after flooding leaves homes covered in mud:
On August 14, the Virgin River near its confluence with Gould Wash hit 4,000 CFS, much of it coming from the wash itself — making the 3,000 CFS design capacity far from an overestimate.
An aerial photo from 1936 shows Gould Wash running through farm fields in the same area. Today, homes, schools, and churches occupy that land — and all of them are vulnerable to flooding.
The proposed Gould Wash project would cost approximately $63 million in total. The federal government would cover $58 million of that cost. If the project moves forward, flood insurance costs for homeowners in the area — which can be expensive in likely flood zones — could become far less of a concern.
