A 200-YEAR EVENT

Doug Schrauth was proud of the landscaping work he’d done to his home on South Lompa Lane at the foot of Prison Hill.

“I’d just finished showing my girlfriend all the work I’d done around here,” he said, as he loaded rocks and mud into a lawn tractor Tuesday. He and his children spent the day cleaning up about a foot of mud and other debris that filled his yard, driveway and sidewalks after Monday’s flash floods.

He said he left home for a little more than an hour Monday and returned to find the damage.

“I emailed (my girlfriend) and said, ‘Good thing you saw it, because this is what it looks like now,’” Doug said. “That’s 14 years of landscaping just gone. I figure it will take me at least six months to make it look good again.”

His son, Martin, was home when the 20 minute rainstorm blew through about 2 p.m., dropping 1.5 inches of rain in 20 minutes.

“It started down pouring,” he said. “It was barrelling down like a river down the road and down the property.”

Rob Fellows, storm water engineer for the Carson City Public Works Department, said between 12 and 20 homeowners received property damage on both sides of Prison Hill and along the Goni Wash.

“It’s mostly sediment on driveways and on landscaping next to homes,” he said.

He said crews were out clearing streets Tuesday in the areas of South Lompa, Carson River Road and Goni Road.

“The roadside swales and ditches were being put back together,” Fellows said. “The sweepers are out picking up that dust. Obviously, we don’t want that blowing around.”

He said the next step will be to clear out culverts. He said there wasn’t much the city could have done to prevent the flooding.

“This was really a 200-year event for that amount of rain to fall in that short time,” he said. “There’s not a lot you can do with standard roads and natural drainages.”

Steve Wolfe, on Damon Road, was taking a nap when he was awakened by the storm.

“It was coming down so hard, it just bypassed the gutters and was coming off of the roof like a waterfall,” Wolfe said. “I stepped outside and the water was going so fast it almost took me out.”

It left about six inches of mud from Prison Hill caked in his driveway.

“This stuff is like trying to move concrete,” he said. “It’s so thick, I do a little bit then I have to take a break. It’s been a nightmare.”