It will be some time before the full impact of a spring of record runoff and flooding is known.

However, as officials begin to take stock, there’s a feeling that damage estimates are going to be on the low side throughout the county.

Eli Johnson, emergency management coordinator for Weber County, told the Standard-Examiner that officials have come up with a preliminary figure on the cost of this year’s flooding, primarily in terms of manpower.

“The bulk of the heavy lift was our public works and roads department with debris removal and emergency protective measures — sandbagging, diverting water channels,” he said. “Right now, we’re hovering right around $427,000 in direct damages and direct costs to the county with this year’s runoff. The vast majority of that is public works.”

The next major task is to check for impacts on river infrastructure itself, from destabilized banks to physical damage to infrastructure.

In some ways, this process actually began before any flooding occurred.

“We had the sheriff’s office drone team flying drainages from late-December and moving through the entire winter and the runoff period just so we had a baseline of what a lot of the drainages looked like,” Johnson said. “Moving forward, we’ll be doing that again.”

He said the county will also take to the rivers once water levels have dropped sufficiently.

“The other part of that would be the county engineers and engineering department and Office of Emergency Management will basically kayak the rivers themselves, document and get GPS readings on whether there’s been significant damage or undercutting of the banks that needs to be repaired between now and the next high runoff.”

Johnson said it will likely be toward the end of July before they can do overflights again and get into the water along the upper Weber River.

While the preliminary figure for damages and costs has been submitted to the state, Johnson said he isn’t anticipating there will be any federal assistance.

“Right now, it doesn’t look like the county monetarily sustained enough infrastructure damage to qualify for any federal assistance through a Stafford Act declaration. There’s a monetary threshold in direct costs and damages associated for FEMA to step in,” he said, referring to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Johnson said the threshold for Weber County would be just over $1.2 million in damages and direct costs.

This year’s flooding and high-water event, despite following the melting of record snowpack, featured very few major issues tied to it. A partial collapse of state Route 39 in Ogden Canyon was observed and a minimal number of evacuations were carried out, but few other major events occurred directly as a result of the flooding.

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