MORGAN — Morgan County officials have filed an emergency declaration with the state in anticipation of more rain, full reservoirs and continued snow melt.
"It doesn’t mean we’re overwhelmed or out of resources," Emergency Management Director Terry Turner said. "It’s just a pre-emptive thing that opens up state resources. We’re eating up our resources fast."
Council Chairwoman Tina Kelley signed off on the declaration that was submitted Thursday afternoon.
In cooperation with Morgan city, county crews have been busy building berms and cleaning deadfall from riverbeds. Some 4,000 sandbags have been used in the last couple of days and the county has another 40,000 empty sandbags in reserve.
"We would rather (declare an emergency) ahead of time rather than in the middle of it," Turner said.
Turner is warning residents to watch for subwater coming up in basements.
"You can’t really sandbag for subwater, but people need to be aware of it," he said.
Although East Canyon Creek seems to be "holding its own," water is expected over top of the spillway of Lost Creek Reservoir by Thursday, Turner said. Already, water is lapping over the roadway at Devils Slide in the Croydon area, he said.
Rain from a storm that started earlier this week has saturated hillsides in Utah and added to the record snowpack.
The National Weather Service says as much as four inches of rain has fallen in lower elevations this week in northern Utah. Ski resorts, meanwhile, have reported as much as three feet of snow.
The rain and snow is expected to end sometime Friday, but another storm is forecast to begin Monday.
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