An Aside

We had some fairly serious flooding here in northern Utah due to Spring runoff starting June 6 and one of the sites featured in the evening news on the afternoon and evening of June 7 was 2 doors west of us along Kings Hill Drive. I went to walk around the block at 7:00 on the morning of June 7 before leaving for the BMT clinic and found a crowd of people at Fred and Jen Fredricksen's driveway filling sand bags. Jen came over and told me that she and a bunch of neighbors had been there since midnight filling those bags to protect a house up the canyon where the stream was washing out a diversion dam and might wash away a house just below the dam. The news coverage showed the stream where it flowed between some cottonwood trees before entering a culvert that conducted the stream diagonally across and beneath Kings Hill Dr. The home owner near the trees was quite concerned that the stream might undercut one or more of the trees causing one to crash into his house. That didn't happen but the next day there was a depression about 3 or 4 feet in diameter and maybe 8 inches deep in the pavement along the projected line of the culvert. A day after that the depression had been filled with fresh asphalt and then a day or so later a hole about 1 foot in diameter had developed in the new macadam and an employee from Cottonwood Heights was trying to see down the hole. The next day a wheeled backhoe/loader was at the site excavating the paving and earth fill below. The view above was exposed when the excavation was completed. I asked one of the workers what they were going to do and he said that they think the culvert also is damaged below the water and they are going to get some contractors to come give them estimates on replacing however much of the culvert is needed. The hole is barricaded as shown and most evenings the backhoe is placed with hoe extended across the hole but today 2 large steel plates were emplaced to completely cover the hole and I guess that any effort to replace the culvert is some time away.