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South Salt Lake flooding causes traffic delays

Posted at 1:51 PM, May 24, 2019
and last updated 2019-05-24 19:22:07-04

SOUTH SALT LAKE, Utah — A "road weather" situation in South Salt Lake caused delays for some drivers in South Salt Lake Friday afternoon.

SOUTH SALT LAKE, Utah -- A dangerous scene in South Salt Lake is now clear after a flash of heavy rain turned a road into a river.

Gary Keller, Executive Officer with South Salt Lake Police, says some drivers didn't adjust to the conditions, causing their cars to stall out.

"They went through too fast. The engine got wet. In that case, usually the engine will dry out because it's warm already and they can restart the cars and go on," Keller said.

This all took place within a short period of time, starting around 1:30 pm.

Keller said the nearby water pumps couldn't keep up with the amount of water in that low lying area.

"The problem is the pumps can’t keep up with the amount of water," he said. "They do a great job, but sometimes we have to bring in extra pumps."

South Salt Lake Police sent out officers to slow down drivers while the pumps caught up.

"We pulled a lot of our assets, our officers down here to kind of control traffic. We never did get to the point where we had to shut down the freeway off-ramps," Keller said.

Traffic was slowed to one lane going westbound, but it was all clear in less than an hour.

"It probably backed up traffic for some time, but as you can see now, it's flowing freely and everything’s back to normal," Keller said.

Police say this tends to happen during heavy rainfall. There's another area that's regularly affected on 2100 South.

Police recommend all drivers slow down when they encounter low lying water.