MOAB, Utah (KUTV) — Not one, not two, but four different flooding events have swamped Moab this summer.
After the severe thunderstorms, people there felt like something needed to be done to stop the cycle that has been on repeat in 2024.
“Maybe this is what the city and county needed to see to really understand that this is an emergency,” said Helene Rohr, Moab resident.
The mayor of Moab,Joette Langianese, talked about how the flooding in late August was more intense than the ones that were experienced in 2022.
“We’ve seen these floods take a new path. I mean, when you get that much water through your town, the water’s going to go where the water’s going to go,” Langianese said.
She said it’s becoming a common problem, and they’re trying to fix the issue by focusing on bridge fixes — but it’s not quick and not cheap.
“Well, it’s a whole flood mitigation issue. You know, I mean, we’ve got to look at the whole riverbed, which we’re looking at. You know, our engineers are looking at the bridges and what needs to be done, and how they need to be replaced. I mean, that’s the bottom line,” said Langianese. “Every time we have an event, our city crews and our street crews are out.”
The mayor explained that the bridges can’t handle the capacity of the debris that flows through with the flash floods.
“It just goes right over the top of the bridge, and then it flows down that street and right down into Main Street, where we get a foot of water on Main Street, which causes all kinds of problems,” said Langianese.
There are several problematic bridges on 300 south, 500 west, and 400 east — the city owns these.
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“We’re working with our federal delegation and hopefully the state to help out. These are expensive projects. We’re looking at $10-30 million in projects. We’re a small town. We don’t have that kind of money,” said the Langianese.
Even with funding, it will take several years to complete the projects.
“So, our community needs to understand that we’re doing the best that we can to mitigate these flood events. But they’re going to continue to happen until we take care of these bridge problems,” said Langianese.
For now, the city works to clean up debris after each storm.
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