Rosario Vargas stood on her parents’ driveway on Salt Lake City’s west side, looking across the street at her own home, where a couch was leaning upright on the pavement — one of the many waterlogged belongings she pulled outside after floodwaters swept through the neighborhood Saturday, damaging more than two dozen homes.
“I just got done remodeling my basement. My whole new laminate flooring — water got underneath it, so I’m gonna have to remove it,” Vargas said Monday. “We just got to the point where we got water out of my home.”
Her parents’ home, which backs up to a canal just east of Interstate 215, was hit even harder, she said, with nearly two feet of water flooding the lower level after record rainfall drenched the valley. Their washer and dryer sat on the driveway Monday after being drained, surrounded by other soaked items pulled from the garage and home.
Vargas’ home is one of 27 in the Willow Place neighborhood that sustained flood damage over the weekend. The neighborhood lies just east of the Salt Lake City International Airport, bordered on one side by a drainage canal designed to carry stormwater runoff alongside Interstate 215.
Along Sir Philip Drive — where most of the affected homes back up to the stormwater canal — furniture, clothing and other belongings were sitting scattered across driveways and lawns Monday, laid out to dry under the sun.
(Christopher Cherrington | The Salt Lake Tribune)
Volunteers with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Helping Hands program were aiding flood victims Monday afternoon. Vargas said she temporarily lost power Monday morning, but it was back on after 30 minutes.
She, and several residents that talked to The Salt Lake Tribune, said they either did not have flood insurance, or tried to apply but were denied because the area is not considered a flood risk.
“We’re in survival mode,” Vargas said. “I’m just trying to help my parents.”
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Rosario Vargas looks over the damage to her son’s basement bedroom where several inches of water covered new laminate flooring and carpet and destroyed appliances, during Saturday’s flooding along Sir Philip Drive in Salt Lake City on Monday, October. 6, 2025.
Salt Lake City Council member Victoria Petro — who represents District 1, which includes Willow Place — said the city is working on an emergency aid plan for affected residents. Salt Lake County is coordinating with the state to determine what, if any, funding may be available for those affected, said Tara Behunin, the county’s emergency management director.
“As we’re gathering information that’s coming in and identifying what we can and cannot use funds for, we’re just supporting Salt Lake City,” Behunin said, adding that the city is leading efforts to assess the needs of homeowners whose property was flooded.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Aurelio Vargas tries to salvage a couch that sat in several inches of water in his basement during Saturday’s rainstorm, which affected dozens of residents on and around Sir Philip Drive in Salt Lake City, Monday, Oct. 6, 2025.
Saturday was the second wettest day in Salt Lake City-area history, with the most rainfall recorded in more than 120 years, according to the National Weather Service.
That rainfall caused the canal to overflow — spilling into backyards and eventually into people’s homes, affected residents said Monday. Salt Lake County monitors this canal and the watershed it drains into, including a series of water pumps that run during storms.
Dave Durr, who has lived in his home on 900 North for 43 years with his wife, Sharon, said he wants to know how flooding can be avoided in the future.
“My biggest holler right now is we got to find out why,” Durr said, standing outside his home where he had carpet padding draped over a fence to dry and later had reinflated his blow-up Halloween decorations. “Because if we get another rainstorm Saturday, we’re in the same boat because it’s going to overflow.”
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Dave Durr dries carpet padding along his fence as he assesses the damage to his basement, along with the property of several neighbors affected by Saturday’s rainstorm along Sir Philip Drive in Salt Lake City, Monday, Oct. 6, 2025.
Kade Moncur, director of Salt Lake County Flood Control, said there isn’t a simple fix. Preventing future flooding, he said, would require a coordinated effort among the city, county and state to improve drainage systems and increase the capacity of the canals that carry stormwater.
“Improvement can be done,” he said. “I think anything can be engineered, but it is a very large effort to get everything in a larger capacity, so this kind of situation doesn’t happen.”
Out of five water pumps used during large rainfall events, two were activated around 11 a.m. Saturday, followed by two more later that day, Moncur said. The pumps remained running until early Monday morning, he said.
Despite all of the pumps being fully operable, the drainage system in the Willow Place neighborhood couldn’t keep up with the volume of water, he said.
“It wasn’t a failure of pumps or a blocked system,” he said, “it was too much rain and too little time and limited capacity from all drainage facilities in the area.”
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) A pair of boots dries in the sun as residents affected by Saturday’s flooding along Sir Philip Drive in Salt Lake City work to clean up the damage on Monday, Oct. 6, 2025.
The pumps are rarely run on weekends, Moncur added, because they require constant monitoring and can cause flooding downstream if not carefully managed. Over the weekend, he said, the county had to cycle the larger pumps on and off due to capacity limits in the channel that carries water away from the pumping station.
“If we keep the pumps going, it’ll flood downstream properties,” he said, adding that not all the pumps need to run simultaneously to be effective.
Moncur noted that the pumps don’t remove floodwater but are designed to move it through a system that has little natural slope and poor drainage.
“They keep water moving,” he said, “but they can’t alleviate all flooding, because the entire area drains very slowly.”
Alissa Cortez, who lives along Sir Philip Drive, said she had tried repeatedly to get flood insurance but was always denied.
On Monday, she looked out at her backyard, still partly covered in standing water, as clothing, books and shoes were carefully laid out on her porch to dry. With so many of her belongings damaged, she said she felt overwhelmed and unsure how she would afford to replace or repair them.
“I’m trying to get everything out of the garage right now and make sure everything in there is dry,” Cortez said. “You can tell the mold is already starting. It smells terrible. I’m just tired. I know other houses got it worse, but that’s also where everyone is going [to lend help], because they got it worse. So I’m kind of just alone.”