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West Warren • Residents held their breath as the floodwaters continued to rise Thursday after a levee broke, sending water from the Weber River in a different direction.
"I just hope the river goes down," said homeowner Peggi Nielsen. "We are afraid our home will be destroyed."
About 7:30 a.m., Weber County officials were refueling six specially ordered diesel pumps to divert the waters when they saw the levee break.
"Right in front of our eyes, it just went," said James Parks, a road worker for Weber County.
Water submerged four pumps, and by noon floodwaters near the levee were a foot above flood stage and climbing. Mike Caldwell, spokesman for the Weber County Commission, said repair crews tried to plug levee holes with giant sandbags, but the swift-moving water washed away the bags.
Weber County, the Utah Department of Transportation and the Utah National Guard are determining how to repair the levee, but it wasn't known when a solution will be found.
In the meantime, authorities tore through four asphalt roads to allow the floodwaters to reach an overflow canal. The purposeful destruction has closed the following roads: 5500 West and 5900 West at 400 North, 6400 West at 700 North and 6700 West at 900 North.
Weber County Sheriff's Lt. Mark Lowther said water covered 40 to 50 acres on Thursday, turning what is normally farm ground into shallow pools and making homes appear as though they had moats.
"We are just trying to protect property and minimize damage," Lowther said.
Up to 15 homes are in danger of being flooded, but no one has been evacuated and no interior damage to homes has been reported. Nobody has been evacuated and the sandbags were keeping the waters at bay.
The Utah National Guard received state approval Thursday evening to use a UH-60 helicopter Friday to move sandbags, if necessary, to plug the levee break.
The diverted waters flowed directly toward one home on 5900 West and 400 North. Lynn Nielsen, of Logan, said he got the call Thursday morning saying his brother's house was in danger of flooding.
Nielsen said the waters around the home rose at least 2 feet in the three hours after the phone call.
"It is just going to keep coming," he said.
The homeowner has spent the past month building dikes around the home to prepare for this very event. More than 60 friends and family members showed up along with inmates from the Weber County Jail to help sandbag around the home.
"When the river broke, it was just a massive rush [to find help]," said family member Bobbie Jo Nielsen, of Plain City. "Everyone was making phone calls, and [the help] just kind of grew really fast."
The Red Cross set up a staging area at a local LDS church to provide food and first aid supplies and to dispatch volunteers to areas.
Bobbie Jo Nielsen said the small town is a community where people know everybody and help regardless of the situation.
Douglas Hansen set up sandbags back in mid-April when the floodwaters got high.
"We got prepared, and then it [the floodwaters] went down," he said.
Since then, the waters have been flirting up and down.
"We have been under the threat for more than six weeks," he said.
Since then, he has watched floodwaters slowly submerge his family farm and livelihood. The farm was 100 percent underwater Thursday.
"The grass would have been cut Tuesday," Hansen said. "But now the grass, grain, hay — it is all gone."
All he can hope for is some generous farmers who will offer a lower price for hay, since he can't grow his own this season.
"It is like if you had a business in Salt Lake and it was flooded, and that was your only business, then you are finished," he said.
Hansen said in 1983 the floodwaters were much worse, with water about four feet high at his house. On Thursday the water had just barely started hitting the base of the sandbags.
"We have had more help this time than ever before," Hansen said. "This year, [Weber County] is ahead of the game."
Twitter: @CimCity —
Flooding conditions statewide
The Weber River incident seemed to be the exception to a generally improving flood risk situation statewide.
Cooler, below-normal temperatures Thursday were slowing runoff into the region's bank-full rivers and streams, with highs forecast to range from the low- to mid-60s in northern Utah and nippy low 50s in eastern Utah.
Friday's highs were forecast to rise a bit into the mid-70s, still several degrees below normal for this time of year.
In southern Utah, higher temperatures were expected, but the forecast otherwise was for clear and dry weather. Highs in St. George Friday were predicted for the 80s and 90s.
As numerous waterways remained filled to the brim, and in some cases were still spreading beyond their banks, the National Weather Service extended flood warnings in eight counties — Weber, Davis, Morgan, Sanpete, Summit, Juab, Piute and Sevier — to Friday afternoon after initially planning to let them expire late Thursday.
Forecasters cautioned that despite improving conditions, the danger of flooding remained a concern in several areas into mid-June: the Weber River, which remained above flood stage Thursday, from Echo Reservoir to its termination at the Great Salt Lake; the south fork of the Ogden River, also at flood stage near Huntsville; Lost Creek near Croyden; and the Sevier River from the Piute Reservoir to Yuba Lake.
Meanwhile, Salt Lake County emergency management crews were keeping close watch on the Jordan River as well as Big and Little and City creeks. The same vigilance was being exercised in Utah County, where on Wednesday an 8-year-old boy drowned in the cold, fast-moving waters in the American Fork River.
His was the fifth drowning death reported in Utah waterways in the past two weeks.
Bob Mims