Top of Utah waits for the floodwaters

OGDEN -- Weber County commissioners huddled Monday to discuss continued flood-stage conditions along the Ogden and Weber rivers.

Commissioner Kerry Gibson said they reviewed the county's emergency response plan in anticipation of additional flooding.

"We have to make good, rational decisions," he said. "We want people prepared as much as possible, but not to panic."

In the past couple of weeks, the county received a shipment of another 120,000 sandbags and replenished its stockpiles of sand, Gibson said.

"The weather patterns we are continuing to have tell us we are not going to get through the season without significant flooding," he said. "We are continuing to put all the pieces in place so that we can have the best coordinated response effort possible."

A flood warning from the National Weather Service remains in effect until noon Wednesday for the South Fork of the Ogden River between Causey and Pineview reservoirs near Huntsville.

The level of that section of the river was about 4.9 feet Monday, above flood-stage level of 4.6 feet, said Christine Kruse, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service.

The river near Huntsville is expected to stay above flood stage through noon Wednesday because of melting snowpack, she said.

The section where flooding is likely to occur is protected well by sandbags, said Lance Peterson, Weber County's director of Emergency Management and Homeland Security.

The level of the Weber River near Plain City was about 26 feet Monday, is expected to go above flood stage of 27 feet Thursday and could stay that way for several days, Kruse said.

Davis County Sheriff's Sgt. Susan Poulsen said Farmington Canyon road, the site of a rockslide over the weekend, will be closed until at least Friday.

"As the crews were working to remove the debris (Monday), the slide continued to fall," she said.

Because of the area's instability, officials decided to stop clearing the road of debris.

The road will be closed until the next round of storms is over, giving the mountain time to dry out and stabilize so crews can finish cleaning up the debris.

No one was injured in the rockslide.

Other slides occurred around the state over the weekend. A mix of rain and snow led to multiple slides of rocks and mud that blocked roads near Beaver Canyon in Southern Utah and Santaquin Canyon in central Utah, National Weather Service hydrologist Brian McInerney said Monday.

No homes were damaged, and no injuries were reported.

The snowpack in Northern Utah is well above what it was during the massive floods of 1983 that caused $250 million in damage and wiped out crops, homes and businesses, and flooded downtown Salt Lake City.

"It's a wait-and-see situation right now. Our snowpack is so big and so overdue, we're only melting low-elevation snow pack right now," McInerney said.

"But we could run into major flooding problems in June when average temperatures run above 80 degrees and high-elevation snow begins to melt at a faster rate."

Experts warn residents living near fast-moving streams and rivers to remain cautious and be prepared to move to higher ground.

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