Cleanup continues in flooded Nevada town as residents await disaster status
RENO, Nev. (AP) -- Building inspectors went door to door in a northern Nevada town Tuesday to assess millions of dollars of damage from the flood caused by a break in a century-old irrigation canal.
As flood waters continued to drain in the fast-growing community of Fernley, 30 miles east of Reno, cleanup efforts from the weekend levee rupture were ongoing.
Meanwhile, homeowners were awaiting word on whether President Bush would declare their neighborhood a disaster area, making them eligible for full-scale federal aid that provides low-interest grants and loans to help cover repair costs.
Gary Bacock, Fernley city manager, said water in the hardest hit areas was down to curb high -- a big improvement but little consolation to residents who awoke early Saturday to find water gushing into their homes.
Water collected 8 feet deep in some areas after a large swath of the earthen levee gave way and a 2-foot wave of water swamped the neighborhood. More than a dozen residents were rescued by helicopter from rooftops, while others were taken to safety by boats.
The canal is owned by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation but managed by the Truckee-Carson Irrigation District.
That will make it difficult to determine liability, Jeff Page, Lyon County's emergency services director, told about 400 residents during a Monday night meeting.
"So that's going to be an issue, who is responsible for what, and that's an answer I don't know," Page said. "Hopefully when it comes time to fund it they will look at that it's a federal property and that will help push the directive to get done."
Bacock said teams of building inspectors, including volunteers from as far away as Las Vegas, were assessing nearly 600 homes to determine whether they were inhabitable. He said large trash bins are being placed along the streets so residents can dispose of the muck and trash.
Gov. Jim Gibbons on Saturday declared the area a disaster, the first step toward seeking a federal disaster designation.
But Michael Karl of the Federal Emergency Management Agency said after touring the region with U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and others on Monday that federal aid was "not going to be a slam dunk."
Gibbons, in his request expected to arrive Tuesday at the White House, included initial repair and cleanup estimates approaching $4 million, and indicated that follow-up assessments could push that total higher.
Reid, D-Nev., and others in the state's congressional delegation pledged to fight for the federal declaration.
The 31-mile-long canal takes water from the Truckee River near Reno and delivers it to farms around Fallon, 60 miles east of Reno.
A similar rupture in the same vicinity flooded 60 homes in December 1996. Griffith and Scott Sonner in Reno and Brendan Riley in Carson City contributed to this report.
(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
