Flooding in Salt Lake not expected, despite high snowpack

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Tom Callan reporting With a big snowpack this winter, the Salt Lake City Council is about to get a briefing on possible flooding in the City Creek and Red Butte corridors.

Twenty-five years ago, May 1983, downtown Salt Lake was flooded. Could it happen this year?

"If we have a scenario like that, we could have some potential high runoffs. But most likely, we'll have a normal spring," explained Jeff Niermeyer, director of the Salt Lake City Public Utilities Department.

Niermeyer says the worst outlook would be more cold and snow, and then sudden heat in May.

"We had higher snowpack in 2005, higher snowpack in 2006, and we had no flooding," he said. So, if we have a normal spring, he says the creeks will not overflow.

E-mail: tcallan@ksl.com