DRAPER, Utah — A trip home from a softball practice in Herriman earlier this month took a turn for Jacob Nielsen and his daughter.
He said they were heading home up Traverse Ridge Road on Aug. 3 as a storm came through the area.
A cell phone video shot by his daughter captures a loud noise as they were driving up the road.
"I saw the manhole cover about 10 feet before I hit it, and as soon as we hit it, my truck just flipped up, and yeah, I was done," said Nielsen.
In the video, Nielsen could be heard saying that the manhole cover popped up underneath his car.
"It flew about 30 or 40 feet behind me," said Nielsen.
He says the incident ended up damaging his truck.
"My tire was destroyed, drive line destroyed," said Nielsen.
In the video, cars could be seen driving by as Nielsen said that they probably need to put the manhole cover back on so somebody else doesn't hit it.
"My main concern is that it's going to happen again and somebody's not going to be driving a three-quarter ton pick up — they're going to be driving a Ford Focus or something and it's going to flip their car," said Nielsen.
It is a concern FOX 13 News took to Draper City Mayor Troy Walker.
"I was out that night... right after the storm with our fire chief, and I actually helped put a couple manhole covers on with him. We did I think three; I think my fire chief put like eight on that night," Walker said.
The mayor says the manhole covers in Draper are part of a pressurized system.
"They're designed to pop... If you lock them all down or you had it so they couldn't pop, you'll have a pipe burst and rupture an entire road," Walker said. "We lock some of them down, but we can't lock them all down."
Walker told FOX 13 News on Friday that they rebuilt Traverse Ridge Road in 2018. He says they put in a detention basin below the four-way stop along the road.
"We've bolted down the grates we can, we put in grates that can allow water up where it makes sense," he said.
He pointed to the several inches of rain Draper has received recently. He says the unprecedented storm that took place on Aug. 3 brought more than two inches of rain and another one earlier this week brought an additional 0.6 inches in just 16 minutes time.
"It's really a function of unprecedented water in systems that are, you know, older, and... that are kind of fit together," Walker said.
Walker said the manhole cover that Nielsen hit has never popped off to his knowledge. He says his engineer is going to take a look at it and see if that is one of the covers they can ultimately lock down.
"Our goal is to, you know, keep our citizens safe, do as much as we can... to protect them," Walker said, "[and] have good, safe, good roads to drive on."
Nielsen says he just wants the issue to be fixed.
"It's not convenient, it may not be cheap, but it's a lot cheaper than telling somebody that their loved one has died because of something that could have been fixed," he said.
Walker said the city has a claims process when things like this happen. He says Nielsen was in contact with their claims director, who referred him to their insurance company.
