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Wanship Residents Cleaning Up After Weekend's Heavy Rain

Tom Chappell

Severe weather hit Summit County Sunday, taking out irrigation pumps, depositing debris in yards and filling garages with mud. 

Tom Chappell has lived in Wanship – along Hoytsville Road - for more than four decades. He says Sunday’s storm was the worst he’s ever seen. In just a few minutes, he says water rushing down from Bedford Canyon flooded the neighborhood.

“We've been here 45 years,” Chappell said. And we've had, you know, a little bit rainwater come down this canyon and go alongside the road. But this is the first time it's ever been up to our driveway because we kind of have a little bit of a hill here, but it was just incredible the amount of water come down this canyon.”

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Chappell provided KPCW with this video of the water rushing below his home.

Chappell has a lot of debris in his yard and there were four inches of mud left in his garage. Luckily, he said, the garage has a back door, which happened to be open, so the water was able to run through. He says there were a couple of nearby homes though that saw some water damage...

The heavy rain that came down quickly turned Cottonwood Creek that flows by Dick Stoner’s house in Dog Holler into a river.

“Our stream is typically maybe four feet wide, not very deep.” Stoner explained. “It was 30 feet wide. It was chocolate brown. It was moving rocks. We had a walking bridge that was taken. Our irrigation pump that we use on our garden was completely under rapid of water. And right below us of course is Ranui gardens. They weren't home I went down and looked at their irrigation was also their pump was out just the electrical system and connected hoses were keeping it from going down river. And all of this ends up in neighbor's alfalfa fields that they irrigate, and those fields of course are completely inundated with rocks, gravel and mud.”

His biggest loss may be the brand new irrigation pump he just installed after his old one seized up. He says he’ll take it in and see if it can be repaired.

He says they see flooding in the stream every year, but it’s been a good 20 years since they’ve had any flooding.

Hoytsville Road was covered in mud. Stoner says the farmers took the problem into their own hands and used their tractors and heavy equipment to clear the road.

“Basically, it's some farmers on their tractors on heavy equipment, trying to create some ditching as we continue to get rain and there's a concern, Stoner said. “Once you have these floods, once you have these cuts in these ravines, you know, the cutting continues.”

Summit County Public Works Director Derrick Radke says they also saw some flooding and mud debris that needed to be cleaned up in Chalk Creek.

Park City Police spokesman Phil Kirk says they were called out Sunday assist with traffic control – and stop drivers from driving into Big Cottonwood Canyon after a rockslide in the canyon closed the road.

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