Storms Too Hard to Weather

By Susan Tifft

Coping with melting snow, oozing mud and late frost

Tiny Thistle, Utah, a historic railroading town 60 miles south of Salt Lake City, was once considered an idyllic mountain retreat. No longer. Unglued by record spring rains, a 125-ft. wall of muddy earth swept into nearby Spanish Fork Canyon two weeks ago, backing up the small Spanish Fork River for two miles and creating a natural lake, 50 to 80 ft. deep, that has swallowed up the hapless hamlet. Residents of the town's 22 homes fled, and no lives were lost. But despite attempts to drain the new lake, the water has continued to rise at a rate of 4 in. an hour, fed by melting mountain snow. At least part of Thistle could be underwater for good. Commented State Geologist Bruce Kaliser, who claimed the mud bath was the largest in the area in 1,000 years: "It's the year of the slide."

And slides with a slippery slope: some ten miles away, another soggy mountainside began to roll downhill, threatening to divert a river through the town of Payson (pop. 5,000) before it firmed up. In Northern California earlier this month, a mud slide in the Sierras buried a 1,000-ft. stretch of Highway 50 between Sacramento and South Lake Tahoe under 60,000 cu. yds. of mud, rocks and debris. Highway crews, unable to remove the rubble, are now paving over the roadblock, which runs 30 to 40 ft. high in some spots. Mail in the area is temporarily being delivered by the 450-member National Pony Express Association, a private society that operates California's original pony express station, seven miles from the mud slide. Pony postmen include local ranchers, a highway patrolman and two 14-year-old boys.

So it went for the wild, wet West. Barely recuperated from winter storms that pounded Pacific Coast piers and unloaded record snows by the driftful, the region has been drowning in one of the wettest springs ever. Swollen by heavy rain and snow runoff in the mountains, Utah's Great Salt Lake is projected to peak at 4,204 ft. above sea level in June, nearly a foot more than officials estimated only months ago. The culprit: a spate of unseasonably cool, moist weather that has prevented evaporation, which normally acts to counterbalance the effects of the runoff. Damages to property and roadway, now estimated at $20 million to $30 million, could go as high as $264 million this year. Salt water has begun to eat away at the dikes protecting the nine wildlife refuges that rim the lake; about 4,000 acres of fresh-water marsh, home to some 7 million waterfowl and countless shore birds, have been destroyed by the briny advance. Utah officials are considering several solutions, including dams to catch spring snow runoff and an enlargement of the culverts through the railway causeway that slices the lake in half.

Throughout the West, reservoirs are full, rivers are bursting their banks, and the earth, loosened by constant downpours and melting snow, menaces highways and towns. In the mountainous parts of California, unusually heavy snowfalls, now beginning to melt, have raised the specter of unprecedented spring flooding. "The snow in the mountains is 200% above normal," observes Dean Coffey, manager of the San Francisco Hetch Hetchy Water and Power System. "I don't see how we can get away from flooding."

Last month the San Joaquin River, flush with mountain runoff, broke through a levee near Vernalis in Northern California and washed out 10 sq. mi. of prime farmland. Farther upstream, in central California's Kings County, rains had already dunked 70,000 acres in floodwater; the runoff now threatens an additional 20,000 acres. "We're down here like a bathtub without a drain," fretted Farmer Don Gilkey, who had 4,000 of his 10,000 acres drowned.

The soaking was not limited to the West, however. In Connecticut last week, a late spring snow, combined with 8.33 in. of rain that has fallen since the first of the month, made this the wettest April in the state's history. A freak mud slide crushed a house, three cars and two trucks in New Milford. And local officials in Farmington, Conn., airlifted 80 Ibs. of dry dog food to a puppy stranded on an island in the whirling waters of the Farmington River. In Vermont, a record-shattering April snowfall, topping 2 ft. in some areas, left more than 40,000 homes without electricity.

As if that were not enough, a late freeze in the Deep South left fruit and vegetable crops devastated. Heavy rains had already delayed the planting of corn, watermelon and tobacco in Georgia, and rice, wheat and cotton in Louisiana. The apple and peach farmers in the northern part of Georgia found most of their potential harvests frozen on the trees.

What is to blame for the pernicious weather? Meteorologists suspect there are three basic factors: a warmer-than-usual El Nino current from the Pacific, the jet stream pulling cold air down from Canada, and major volcanic activity in Mexico and Hawaii. It has all added up to a volatile mix of weather down below. --By Susan Tifft. Reported by Jerry Ford/Salt Lake City and Dick Thompson/San Francisco

With reporting by Jerry Ford/Salt Lake City, Dick Thompson/San Francisco This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.