HURRICANE, Utah - A Hurricane homeowner is asking the city to pay for damage to his home after an incomplete storm drain system sent water into his living room during heavy rain earlier this month.
Wil DuCrest made his plea during the city council meeting Thursday night.
Like many residents, on Sept. 11 he was doing his best to keep flash flood water out of his house, but he said he was confused as to where it was coming from.
“It was a totally overwhelming and powerless feeling,” he said. “You see all this water coming down. We lost the carpet and pad in the main living room. We have carpet and pad damage in the bedrooms. We have drywall damage. Possible mold issues.”
DuCrest estimates there was close to $3,000 in property damage. City crews breached the canal to relieve the flooding, and it wasn’t until the next day he discovered the incomplete drain ending in the unused canal. But because several sections of the canal were backfilled during years of home construction, the natural drainage didn’t work.
“We really didn’t stop them,” said Hurricane City Manager Chuck Fawcett about developers filling in the former irrigation canal. “We kept saying, ‘You’re going to regret that. You shouldn’t do it,’ but we never went out and said, 'Remove that as well.'”
Fawcett said the city feels they responded the best they could during the Sept. 11 storm, but unfortunately they aren’t able to plan for everything that could go wrong. But he said the drain was something overlooked by city officials, and should have been fixed.
“It was part of an unfinished system that was supposed to be when a subdivision was done to the north of it,” Fawcett said. “They never finished that up, so we had a system that wasn’t really functioning the way it should have functioned.”
Fawcett said the city is already looking at possible solutions to the drainage problem, and has forwarded DuCrest’s presentation to their insurance company to see if they can cover the damage.
DuCrest said he doesn’t have hard feelings, he just wants his home back and for city officials to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
