ST. GEORGE (ABC4 News) – After a wet and snowy spring, St. George city officials are gearing up against flooding issues with the coming monsoon season starting next month.
Utility crews were out repairing roads Friday after dealing with issues with groundwater, saying they’re doing everything they can to prepare before a few big storms pass through Southern Utah.
“We expect that we will get some strong storms, some high intensity storms on any given year,” St. George Public Works Director Cameron Cutler said. “We just hope that it’s not gonna hit an area that we haven’t historically had issues to where we have problems that we haven’t historically had.”
Cutler said rare groundwater has bubbled up on the surface of some streets, forcing closures of suburban streets so utility crews can excavate.
“We have to see where it’s coming from and make sure it’s not a water line break or anything else,” Cutler added. “We try and get the groundwater into our storm drain so that it doesn’t cause more problems.”
St. George city officials said they’re also working to remove invasive tamarisk plants from the banks of the Santa Clara and Virgin rivers, which create sediment build up and cause flooding.
While waterways along the rivers are running much higher than normal for this time of year, Cutler said the snowpack is nearly all melted, so any flooding issues will only stem from storms.
The public works director added that luckily the city’s storm drains and roadways are made to handle 100-year-storm events.
