Big Water Flood 2008

Saturday called for a few high clouds and less than a 20 percent chance of rain. Boy was the National Weather Service wrong. About 2 p.m. the thunder and lighting hit and the rain started to fall. I have never seen a flash flood like this before, in about 60 minutes we had just over an inch of rain and what a mess it made.

It was raining so hard the water was just pouring off the house and the garden started to fill with water. Once the nickel size hail started to fall I decided it was time to wake Quent up from his name (who sleeps through hail anyway?) and let him know that the storm could cause damage over at the hatchery again.

After the rain stopped we got in the truck and drove around the hatchery to survey the damage, the hatchery made it out just fine but my garden took a hit. Below are some pictures we took just before the rain stopped.

As of Sunday afternoon the water is starting to dry up, we still have a huge pond near the garden but the water has dropped three to four inches and it's possible that we might be able to save the garden.

A view from the water tank looking down at our house.

Quent checking out the garden.

Wahweap creek (which is dry 95 percent of the time) was flowing three-four feet deep at the peak of the flood. This is the same wash that took out the bank of the hatchery three years ago. Luckily the rock wall is now in place to save the hatchery.

Another view of Wahweap Creek.

This is the wash that runs right behind the house down across the upper hatchery road. It was flowing about 6-8 inches deep before dumping into Wahweap Creek.