Flooding at Double Spring Flat forced a family from their home on Sunday. Photo special to The R-C
Two days after an atmospheric river rolled through Douglas County, Morgan and Rachel Jackson had to evacuate their Double Spring Flat home just before the foundation collapsed.
By Sunday, the Jacksons’ home was surrounded by water.
“We had water barriers, soil and sandbags to try and prevent the water from reaching the foundation,” said Morgan. “A day prior to the actual flooding of the house, water breached the barriers.”
Morgan said he went under the house and sealed the vents to mitigate the amount of water coming into the house.
Not 15 minutes before coming out from the crawl space, the ground under the foundation at the west end of the house collapsed right where he had just been.
“We nearly lost our lives in this whole experience,” he said. “We would have been in the exact spot where the ground had collapsed.”
Morgan said their house was built on the land in 2019 and have lived in it since that fall.
“We have never seen anything like this and none of the neighbors had either,” he said.
Morgan said three of his neighbors, some who have lived there for more than 27 years, were also affected by the flooding and had to be evacuated.
Heavy rain and poor drainage contributed to the problem.
Morgan, Rachel and their two daughters, 7 and 9, evacuated around 10 p.m. Sunday.
“We’re all OK and safe,” he said. “Everything was just kind of frantic, none of us have been in this situation before. I’ve never been in a situation where my family has been faced with an immediate threat to their safety and security and had to scramble to get them to safety. We made it and that’s the most important thing.”
Through the support of friends and the community they have been able to provide some temporary housing and stability for their family.
Morgan said he has been back several times since that evening, and it’s still flooded and unsafe.
“Everything is completely surround by water, the garage and crawl space is flooded,” he said. “We can’t even begin to know what damage was caused and how big the sink hole is until the water subsides.”
He said Nevada Water and Fire Restoration were supposed to come out Friday to survey the area.
“We don’t live in a flood plain, none of the residents have flood insurance,” he said. “Financially, everything at this point is out of pocket, but at this point we are not sure what that even looks like.”
A GoFundMe account has been set up in support of the Jacksons.
“Friends have been fantastic in helping us where they can,” said Morgan.
