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FOUNTAIN GREEN, Sanpete County — People in a small Sanpete County town are cleaning up after a major flood.
More than 50% of the city was impacted by the flood that happened Sunday after three inches of rain fell in just one hour, Mayor Mark Coombs said.
That storm sent water pouring into Preston and Robyn Cox's basement.
"I've never seen rain like that," Preston Cox told KSL-TV on Monday as he cleaned up debris.
He described hearing a "big growl" the day before and seeing water shooting up from underneath his fence. The water blew out the Coxes' basement windows and filled the room with nearly 8 feet of water.
The couple was able to save a few photos, but there was no time for anything else.
"Once the water hit, we were underwater within 10 minutes," Robyn Cox said. "Everything downstairs was destroyed."
Next door, Holly Oldroyd took a video of water flooding into her basement windows.
"From the time the first window broke through, till the second and the third, and we had four feet of water, was about a minute and a half," Oldroyd said. "It was fast."
City officials were still tallying the damage Monday afternoon. They estimated more than half and possibly as much as two-thirds of the city's 1,200 residents had been impacted in one way or another by flooding Sunday.
At least five families and possibly more than 10 were displaced by flooding, according to Fountain Green officials and administrators with the American Red Cross.
Councilwoman Alyson Aagard Strait said city leaders were still working to estimate all the damage by checking in individually with residents.
"This doesn't happen in Fountain Green, ever," Strait told KSL-TV. "A lot of families are devastated."
City leaders said most people who were hit by flooding reported several feet of water inside, but no one was hurt.
Fountain Green Elementary School flooded as well. Robyn Cox is the principal there.
"We had about five classrooms that flooded," she said, noting the damage wasn't too bad. "We canceled school for today, and then we'll be back in session tomorrow."
For others, though, cleanup will take much longer. But people from all around came together to do that.
"Preston and I will never be able to thank the community," Robyn Cox said. "Everybody was here so fast."
Preston Cox teaches math at nearby North Sanpete Middle School. He became emotional as he described the outpouring of support.
"Kids are showing up that I taught. I haven't seen their parents in years. People I haven't seen in probably 20 years are showing up," he said. "It's just been absolutely just mind-boggling."
The threat of additional rain Monday brought a small crowd of residents to the parking lot outside of city hall to help fill and distribute sandbags.
"There are people here who are actually flooded themselves who came out to help others who are in worse circumstances," Strait said. "And as you can see by the weather, everyone's worried it's going to happen again."
True to their fears, heavy rains did bombard the city again for roughly 20 minutes Monday evening, producing additional street and some basement flooding on the west side of town.
"Even more rain is coming in right now and making that challenge even worse," said Benjamin Donner, executive director of the American Red Cross in Central and Southern Utah.
Down the street from where firefighters were helping to pump water out of a basement, resident Kendra Miller told KSL-TV, she got soaked while trying to protect her possessions and her exposed basement from the second round of rains.
"We were throwing plywood covers down, things that we could put tarps in place to just keep that second round to going back into where that empty window is."
Miller said she had just made an appointment to have fill dirt delivered to her property Monday, compounding matters.
"It will be a while before we can actually let it start to dry out and landscape," Miller said.
Donner said his organization was working to connect displaced families with resources and helping to ensure they had places to stay.
He urged anyone in the community who needed help to call 1-800-RED-CROSS (1-800-733-2767).
"We just want to make sure no one is suffering in silence," Donner said.
Meanwhile, Mayor Coombs said that the city of Fountain Green is in the process of declaring a natural disaster to try to obtain additional resources as it recovers.
As for the possibility of state help, a spokesperson for Gov. Spencer Cox, who is from Sanpete County and was there Sunday when the flood hit, said the Department of Emergency Management has not yet received any requests from Fountain Green, but it's not likely this flood meets the threshold necessary for state assistance.
We've had some flooding this week and today the town of Ft. Green got pummeled. One rain gauge recorded 3 inches in 1 hour. Still counting, but it's possible half of the homes have damage. These are the people I grew up with and some of the best people on earth. If you only had 4… pic.twitter.com/ornhoX33qR
— Spencer Cox (@SpencerJCox) August 19, 2024
Contributing: Andrew Adams
Correction: A previous version incorrectly identified North Sanpete Middle School as Moroni Middle School.
