The Santa Clara River Flood of 2005, St George, UT 84770

Dennis & Judy Graves
Sunbrook, St. George, UT

Interview with Judy Graves

At first, I was completely unaware, but Dennis was very aware. He had been worred for a week or so, but on Sunday, January 9th, he was pretty anxious all day. On Sunday night he woke up about midnight and said he couldn't sleep and that he was just worried about the water. And he spent several hours up and got some things from the room beneath the house. When he came in about 5:00 am to try and get a couple of hours of sleep and said that the water was half way up the lawn. When he said that I jumped up because I just didn’t expect it to be that bad. Now I couldn’t sleep, so I spent some time packing some Christmas decorations that you know I had procrastinated on.

We got up about 7:00 am – Les had called us about 6:00 am. There was just a lot of water going by that morning. I was worried about sending Rob to school because of the water and the condition of the bridge on Dixie Drive. Dennis and the boys went to get sand bags. Brad Bateman, our real estate agent and friend, came over right away and that is when we got started bagging. And that’s mostly how the day went by. We had help. That’s when people came by and I’m not – I don’t know who came over. I don’t remember anybody’s name. That’s the worst thing. I don’t remember anyone. There were lots of people there.

Once the sandbar – it peaked about 11:00 am. It was supposed to peak about 2:00 pm but I really thought it went down after about 11:00 am. The sand bar started being built up by the lava rock so we felt pretty good that day. Even though I thought Dennis was very nervous still. One the first day we lost a lot of our lawn, but it didn’t get into the house and we still had a certain amount of property left.

We lost all our yard right up the lava rock. I felt pretty good Monday night because you could look off the balcony and there wasn’t as much water. So that was the 1^st day’s damage. We felt pretty good about that. And then the next day the river became a lot bigger – a lot bigger. It was easier to get sand bags that day. They had a smooth operation going on down at the Re-Use Center. We got about four loads of sandbags the 1^st day. The next day it was impossible to count. A lot of people brought sandbags.

There wasn’t a lot of humor going on, but what I thought was funny - everyone had their digital cameras and at times they would all stop and just gape at the river. They were looking at the river with all that water and debris and things floating by and they would all just stand with their mouths open and then a few seconds later they would all get back to work. It seems you had to just stand and watch it. You hear about people stopping to look at car wrecks. It was just amazing. So much came stuff floating down the river. You know, that big black tank floated by, a telephone pole floated down - so that was amazing. I was really surprised at how much more water was in the river that day. It was supposed to crest about 12:30 pm, but the firemen were there about then and they said they thought we were okay since the water has receded at little, but not much.

The worst part was all day people kept saying, it will never get that far, it’s not going get that high. Our main level is higher and you are up higher on the hill. The fireman said I’m not going to order you out, but you should start packing. That was the worst.

All day, I don’t know, but sometimes you felt as if you could lose the house and it is a terrible feeling, and then you would relax a little A tree would fall this way or that and the water level got higher and it didn’t crest until later in the day. And then it got darker at the worst point. During the day you can see what is going on, but at night you can’t see what was going. For me, I spent that entire evening packing. I didn’t realize we had lost most of the yard – virtually all of it at first. When you look over - there is nothing there.

We had a lot of volunteers. Some friends came by and they had friends who had a U-Haul business. So they went and got us a U-Haul to put our stuff in. A couple came and helped pack…a couple of missionaries came…they helped take out the couch. It was wild – you don’t realize how much stuff you have – fragile stuff. We got a new couch so we moved that out. We moved out my grandmother’s furniture and all the antiques. My mother’s depression glass collection – all the sentimental stuff actually. And a lot of clothes. But there were way too many things we didn’t move out and looking back on it…for instance in clothing. I took all sorts of clothes, but no warm things – no coat. That was silly. We took the computer, - you can’t live without the computer – that’s one thing that Ed did for me. The boys cleaned out their rooms. The one that would have suffered was Elizabeth since she was away at school and wasn’t there to pack her things. I packed up a box of her mementos though.

Sentimental items overwhelmingly……photographs…but we left out a lot of things that would have been practical to have. It’s just hard to imagine that the river would eat away that much ground.

And the funny thing about feelings…I know Dennis was very distressed at certain times. When you felt like you were losing a battle….. I think it was very hard for him to accept that. I was fearful, but beyond that I was sort of numb…even Ed said that. For two days you just lived moment to moment…you didn’t sleep much. Dennis had tried to sleep on Sunday, but he just couldn’t sleep. I don’t think he slept any more than a couple of hours at a stretch until Wednesday.

There was a lot of fear. Maybe you could call it anxiety, but it was a moment to moment experience and then when it was finally over it was hard –difficult to get back your normal frame of reference.

Actually now I feel an overwhelming debt of gratitude to all who helped. I’m going to ask for a list of names from Joyce (neighbor) so I can write letters to a couple of wards who sent people over.   No one who was working on our house had a vested interest in our house. It wasn’t their houses and they came and they really worked hard and virtually did everything they could

In fact, at a point in time when Dennis said it is going to do what it’s going to do, they still brought more sandbags. In fact, one of the sandbag walls collapsed and they brought more sandbags and virtually re-constructed one wall. It eventually flooded anyway, but it did help to keep the water from the house for a longer time. If they hadn’t helped the house would have been assaulted by this water for a much longer period of time than it actually was.

And basically, I feel a certain amount of grief for the loss of our back yard. It is so much different than it was before. That is what is hard. It’s not like it is a little bit different or it changed it slightly…it changed the landscape. We had a large backyard and now we have a little backyard. Eventually it may become beautiful again.   We used to live in LaPointe, UT on 30 acres and so when we moved we picked the house here because it had a large back yard and a certain amount of privacy and now it’s just different..

We’ll have to work at making it the best it can be even though it is different. The plan is make it as attractive as it can be. I think Dennis and I think it will cost us about $10,000 and maybe $20,000.

I didn’t expect the city to spend the next two days working on placing the rocks and shoring up our banks I was surprised…glad for the help. They started at Webbs and worked their way towards our home. They really shored us up and I feel safer now that they are there. If it rains again, I hope the water stays in that wide river bed and doesn’t get as big. The river now just winds a little closer to our house. It is hard to tell if they will or can alter the course of the river. But I did appreciate their help.

Our overwhelming feeling is of gratitude for the people that came and helped… grateful that we saved the house. The loss of the yard is one thing, but we still have the house and a lot of people don’t – a lot of people who didn’t expect to lose theirs. Another thing I think is interesting is that we survived as we are on the 100 year flood plain and our house survived a tremendous onslaught. You feel good, but you worry as the water comes around the corner pretty fast.

It’s my first natural disaster and I hope it is my last.