The neighborhoods of Silver Springs and Ranch Place are built on the Swaner Preserve wetlands, which are currently teeming with wildlife and water. On a typical spring day, the sounds of running streams and sand hill cranes can be heard.
But this spring is anything but typical.
Paul Huish lives on Angus Court in Ranch Place. He said on Monday afternoon neighbors who live across the street and next to the preserve saw the water start to rise between their homes.
“There's just so much water in the preserve right now it's almost like a pond or it's not quite a lake size, but there's just a lot of standing water back there and it has to go somewhere," he said. "So unfortunately, the people who are downhill from that had quite an experience yesterday.”
The water got so high so quickly that Huish said one driveway looked like a small lake. A post was put on social media asking for people to help fill sandbags and transport them to Angus Court. That’s when the neighborhood sprang into action.
“And we started with the sump pumps," Huish said. "And that was going well until about 4 p.m. And then we needed to bring in hundreds of sandbags and create a little river on our street here and divert the water so that it didn't get into our neighbor's yards.”
Huish said the fire department was called to help. Park City Fire District Marshal Mike Owens said when the crews first arrived, they saw flooding and called Summit County Public Works to get some assistance. However, Owens said the people doing most of the work were volunteers.
“This really was a community effort that solved this problem. We only had a couple of people on scene. But the community had quite a few," he said. "And it was neat to see, even younger kids, jumping in their cars and going to get more sandbags as they were needed. But it was the community that was doing the work out there. And it's a nice thing to see that.”
Huish said about 20 to 30 people from nearby neighborhoods came out to help.
“Everybody helping in Willow Creek, sandbagging, Browning Court, sandbagging. And so it was all kind of hands on deck amongst our community here. So I'm just proud to be part of this community and really proud of our neighbors and glad we were able to help.”
Owens said it’s a good thing to call the fire department anytime there is extreme flooding, but their primary responsibility is safety, not sandbagging.
“So our job in the fire department is to make sure that there's no lives in danger. Or that if structures are on the verge of collapsing, it's getting people out of their structures," Owens said. "We do have crews that are trained in swift water rescue if someone were to fall in a fast moving river, and we have crews that are trained in structural stabilization if a structure starts to collapse, but as far as the sandbagging and all of the stuff that goes around that we'll be out there helping as much as we can. Just keep it in mind that our primary responsibility is to life and safety.”
On Tuesday, Angus Court was free from flowing waters, but neighbors are on high alert for more flooding.
