City engineers have addressed how the snowfall this year may impact spring runoff and flooding.
City engineers watch the snow conditions closely year-round. Jared Penrod is the principal engineer at Provo City and is part of a team that gives input on the water systems.
Most of the water comes from the High Uintas and right now those mountains are around 120% of the annual snowpack. The runoff will flow into the Jordanelle and Deer Creek reservoirs and then the Provo River. All of those water flow sites are only at 50% capacity because of the recent drought.
“Those reservoirs will fill but not necessarily have a lot of extra water,” Penrod said.
Additionally, Provo City works to construct and maintain drains, gutters and sewers throughout the city. Even with extensive preparation, the biggest threat to spring flooding is the temperature.
“If it stays really cold and then it’s hot that’s when we have issues,” Penrod said. Engineer Danielle Nixon said the temperature affects the speed of the snow melting.
“This year we have more snow and the big concern is that it’s going to melt all at once,” Nixon said.
The Provo City engineers say they don’t foresee a huge spring flooding but are prepared if anything would happen.
“We are prepared to divert it a different way so it doesn’t harm anyone’s property or homes,” Nixon said.
The team is also equipped with around 160,000 sandbags and a BYU volunteer team is on standby to help fill and place those sandbags.
“We have a sandbag filling machine that can fill sandbags in ten seconds per bag,” Penrod said. There is also a team of maintenance workers that are available to help residents with flooding and can be contacted through a hotline at 311.
