Residents balk at offer of one-time grants after Murray Flood


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A number of homeowners in a Murray neighborhood are upset after their homes were flooded because of a storm drain under repair and a freak thunderstorm July 26.

Salt Lake County offered residents grants of $2,000 per home. The neighbors have said it's simply not enough.


Barbara Warner uses tough talk and calls this negligence.

It is easy to spot the aftermath of this crazy flood in the Walden Glen subdivision - there are sandbags still out and large garbage bins up and down the street which once held ruined belongings amounting to tens of thousands of dollars in damage for some of the people here.

Barbara Warner's backyard is like a war zone, with cabinets, plastic, chairs and family pictures all left all left hopefully out to dry.

Inside, the basement has been completely wiped out. She estimates $25,000 to $30,000 damage.

"I think $2,000 is nothing. And how much are they concerned about trying to do the more ethical thing?" she said "And who wrote the law on the books that says the county isn't liable?"

Runoff due to heavy rains that day in July were exacerbated by county-operated storm drain near 5400 South and Redwood Road was under repair at the time. As a result, a wall of water turned into a river along this street, with an almost biblical feel to it.

Warner uses tough talk and calls this negligence. County officials won't characterize it that way, but they're not totally dismissing the claim out of hand.

"We think that we moved very quickly to fix this, given the processes that we needed to do," said Patrick Leary, Director of the Salt Lake County Public Works. "We also believe (with) the information that we have (that) there is no negligence here, but we're also continuing the investigation."

In terms of money, the district attourney has determined the county was not liable for any of this damage. Still, County Mayor Peter Corroon came up with a plan to allocate $100,000 under the assumption that about 50 homes were damaged. There are 29 here with damage in the neighborhood.

Corroon calls this the "morally right thing to do."

Officials said Aug 3. that the dollar figure could go up for people who saw more damage to their property. They're saying get those claims in to the county as soon as possible and that they will try to make a further determination a couple weeks down the road.

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