Homeowners left with mystery — and big bill — after Provo flood

Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes

KEY TAKEAWAYS

A Provo couple faces costly repairs after a severe flood damaged their home last week.
The flood occurred during a rainstorm near the Buckley Draw Fire burn scar on Aug. 27.
Travisse and Stephanie Hansen want to know why the flooding hit their home the hardest.

PROVO — A couple is trying to pick up the pieces after several feet of water, mud and debris poured into their home last week.

It happened on the evening of Aug. 27 during a heavy rainstorm in Provo that also caused a mudslide near the Buckley Draw Fire burn scar, which buried a car and damaged a church.

Travisse and Stephanie Hansen shared video with KSL-TV of what looked like a river rushing into the basement of the home they own but currently rent out. While their neighbors reported dealing with just a few inches of water that night, the Hansens are trying to figure out why such a severe flood happened — and how to pay for it.

"Where did this come from? Why did this happen?" asked Stephanie Hansen. "Why did our basement fill with 4 feet of water and mud?"

Stephanie and Travisse Hansen speak with KSL-TV on Tuesday. The Hansens are trying to figure out why they were hit the hardest by flooding in their neighborhood on Aug. 27. (Photo: Greg Anderson, KSL-TV)

'I just cried'

When the rain came down that evening, the Hansens got a text from their renters who were living at the Provo house near 1300 S. 1500 East informing them that some water was getting inside.

Soon, they received a video showing just how bad it was.

"When I got down here, I just cried," Stephanie Hansen said.

Water, mud, and debris poured into the home owned by Travisse and Stephanie Hansen on Aug. 27. The renters who live there first alerted them to the flooding. (Photo: Stephanie Hansen)

The couple soon had friends, neighbors and strangers showing up to help them shovel out mud and debris, which they appreciated. As they clean up, though, they're puzzled as to why all that water rushed specifically to their house.

"Something happened to cause this," Travisse Hansen said. "We're trying to figure out if it was a blocked duct or something somewhere, or a drain pipe, or just how this exactly happened."

Gordon Haight, Provo Public Works director, said the city just learned what happened at the Hansen home and is investigating. Haight said the city also received a report of another home damaged during the same storm.

"There may have been neighbors upstream that did some landscaping or changed some things," Haight said. "We just don't know, so we're going to go up and take a look and see what we can find out and where that water may have come from."

Gordon Haight, Provo Public Works director, speaks with KSL-TV on Tuesday. Haight said the city is investigating why the Hansens' home was affected so heavily by flooding on Aug. 27. (Photo: Greg Anderson, KSL-TV)

A big bill

How the flood happened is not the only thing the Hansens are trying to figure out.

"(The) main problem is, it's not covered by insurance," said Travisse Hansen.

That's because the water came from outside — not inside — the home. All this could cost the Hansens tens of thousands of dollars or more.

"It's just Trav and I to figure out, like, how to pay for this," said Stephanie Hansen. "And we don't know why — we don't know why this happened to our house."

A couch from the basement of the flooded Hansen home in Springville on Aug. 27. The Hansens said the flooding is not covered by insurance. (Photo: Stephanie Hansen)

The Hansens said they'll try filing a claim with Provo City to see where that goes. They also hope for answers from whatever the city uncovers about the problem.

Cleanup after mudslide

Meanwhile, just to the south, cleanup continued Tuesday at the meetinghouse of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Slate Canyon Drive. It was also damaged during the mudslide last week from the Buckley Draw Fire burn scar.

Haight said the mudslide was a "major debris flow" that overwhelmed the concrete barriers the city had set up.

There was a channel in the area already installed to handle debris, which Haight said crews extended before last week's mudslide, but it still filled up "because of the volume." Haight said city crews will now clean it out.

People work to clean up after a mudslide in Provo near the Buckley Draw Fire burn scar, Thursday, Aug. 28. Cleanup efforts continued throughout Provo on Tuesday, nearly a week after the slide. (Photo: Meghan Thackrey, KSL-TV)

"We know there's rain throughout the month of September, and so we just want to have everything cleaned back out — a new debris basin filled up, cleaned up back there — so we're ready," Haight said. "Hopefully, we don't get an event this large again."

But if there is another mudslide that large, Haight said, there is a plan to prepare for it. He said the developer of a new subdivision above the church will pay to further extend the debris channel and put in additional basins. That, Haight said, is designed to protect the new homes and divert any future flow around the church.

Haight noted no homes were damaged because of the mudslide from the fire burn scar.

"That was our No. 1 priority," he said, "just to make sure the homes were protected."

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.