Officials have advised Utahns to prepare for continuing flooding in a number of ways, including determining their home’s flood risk, and, if necessary, securing sandbags to protect their property.
The most at-risk areas of Salt Lake County sit on its east side, where snowmelt runoff is more typically a problem. And among residents there, Moncur noted, people living near creeks — not canals — should be most worried. As sandbag walls are built higher, they should also expand wider into the shape of a pyramid, Moncur said. So if a barrier is four sandbags high, it should also be four sandbags wide, with four on the first row, three on the second row, and so on. They should be stacked like bricks — offset by half.
When finished with sandbags, they shouldn’t be dumped into storm drains or waterways — any extra debris could cause more flooding. They should be thrown away in dumpsters or cleanup bins provided by the community.Most sandbag retrieval and filling stations in Salt Lake County are concentrated on the east side due to higher flooding risks in those areas.