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Flooding hits Salt Lake Valley cities causing property damage

Posted at 5:29 PM, Sep 09, 2014
and last updated 2014-09-10 08:50:27-04

MURRAY -- Homeowners say they've dealt with the summer rain more than once this year, but this was by far the worst.

Flood water damaged houses from Sugar House to Cottonwood Heights.

Homeowners say rain water ran like a river down side streets in Murray.

“It was just pure water,” said Millcreek Resident Lacey Jensen “Totally damaged all the garden.”

The storm drain in front of Violet McInerney's house backed up and flooded her car.

“You can see it's on the engine, you can see it's on the hood, and the backseat there's a cup holder and it's in the cup holder and on the seats, and in the floorboards. It's just overwhelming,” she said.

Down the road, Monday night's sandbagging efforts gave way into Larry Ontiveros's garage.

“The street was completely flooded, and water was up to here, about that high against the garage door,” Ontiveros said.

He said his driveway is prone to flooding, but now he's better prepared with pumps and a higher stack of sandbags.

City crews cleared drains and helped homeowners pump out their garages and basements.

But George Mulvey expects the giant puddle in his front yard to be there for a few more days.

“All of the water from the neighborhood drains right down here and it stops right here, it doesn't have anywhere else to go,” Mulvey said.

Homeowners and city officials say every time it rains the water runs off into the same areas, so they knew where to focus clean-up efforts.