Highly localized and powerful afternoon rainstorms swept through Cedar City on Monday, July 26, and through neighboring Enoch on Sunday, August 1, flooding hundreds of homes and businesses. Two of the many residents affected by the floods include Nikki Atwood, food service coordinator at Cedar City Hospital, and Darcy Simmons, practice supervisor at Cedar City Clinic and Valley View Family Medicine, along with her husband Chad, a medical technician in Cedar City Hospital’s laboratory. All say their experiences illustrate how the worst tragedies can demonstrate the best in people.
Nikki’s story
Nikki Atwood
Nikki ended her shift at the hospital at about 2:45 p.m. on July 26 and didn’t realize anything was wrong.
“I called my husband to see if he’d picked up the kids from daycare, when he said, ‘Can’t talk! Basement flooding!’ and hung up,” says Nikki. “I thought instantly that it was our water heater again which had flooded three years ago. I didn’t realize what he meant.”
She soon learned this wasn’t just a leaky water heater as she drove to pick up their kids from the daycare several blocks from their home.
“I couldn’t believe the river of water I saw,” says Nikki. “And it got worse and worse the closer I got to home. We live at the bottom of a hill, and there were police cars and other cars all in the road while water was just pouring out of my garage.”
Nikki had to pull up onto the neighbor’s yard just to have a place to park her car. “There was at least a foot of water coming down the hill, right into my backyard,” says Nikki. “The water was muddy and just full of slimy clay, and it was everywhere. My husband, another neighbor, and a stranger worked to try and block our window well to keep more water from going in there, but water had already gone down our hallway, in our laundry room, and all over our garage.”
The flooding through Nikki’s backyard
The weight of the water broke through their back fence.
“Our kids’ toys were all going down the street, even our kiddie pool was floating down the street,” says Nikki. “My husband was able to save a few things, and we saved our dogs, our kittens under the deck, and even a few chickens that we keep.”
Finally, the torrent of water stopped. Nikki and her husband entered the home.
“We have six steps that lead to our downstairs, and water was up to the first stair,” says Nikki. “We had help from our neighbors to get a Shop Vac and get out all the water we could. But I couldn’t believe how gunky the water was. My daughter slipped twice in the clay on the back deck. Food storage, personal belongings, carpet—I couldn’t believe how far the water got. We had to throw many things away and take everything else out to dry.”
Despite the devastation, Nikki says she’s so grateful for small mercies.
“We had to tear out all the drywall but discovered a small leak in the water pipes we wouldn’t have known was there otherwise, so that was a blessing,” says Nikki. “I’m still doing laundry even now of clothes that got caught in the flood, but things like my wedding dress and kids’ blessing dresses didn’t get touched—pretty miraculous. This little seal around our window well held much more of the water back—it just hung on for some reason. Otherwise the flooding damage could have been so much worse for us. My husband wasn’t supposed to be in town that day, and if he hadn’t it would have been much worse. Since he was home, he could run right over and start fighting the flood. And there are large boulders on the mountain behind our home, but they didn’t come loose.”
Nikki is also grateful for everyone who pitched in to help her family.
“My boss, Jenna Rock, manager of food services, made meals for us,” she says. “And so many people have offered to help. The city did a great job removing all the debris from the road, too.”
During the cleaning up the following week, thunderstorms came through the same area with thunder so hard, “it knocked things off our shelves,” says Nikki. “This time though, when the rain fell again, we were able to build a trench to help guide water back out to the road.”
Thankfully, Nikki’s family is now OK and safe. “You don’t realize how much damage Mother Nature can do, and how quickly, until it happens to you,” she says.
Darcy and Chad’s story
Darcy Simmons
Darcy and Chad had just finished packing for a camping trip they were planning for later in the week and were settling in to watch a movie on August 1.
“I was just trying to watch ‘Lord of the Rings,’ dang it,” laughs Darcy. “All of the sudden, this massive hail starts to fall. It was just pounding on our windows.”
The family went to check it out.
“The hail eventually stopped, but we noticed the water running past our house kept creeping up more onto our lawn,” says Darcy. “We started to get nervous. Chad said we should check the basement window wells, so we went and looked and there was three inches of water in there that was starting to leak through.”
Darcy grabbed the Shop Vac and tried to keep the water out, but in two minutes, it went from three inches to three feet.
“The water was pouring over top of the window well, and pretty soon the window started to bow because of pressure,” says Darcy. “But there I was with my Shop Vac. I was just committed, thinking I’m still going to Shop Vac all this water out.”
The water pressure finally caused the window to burst, and the muddy filth poured into the basement storage room, the shards of glass cutting Darcy’s feet, although she didn’t realize it at the time.
“I was running around the house getting stuff out, but kept noticing blood on the upstairs carpet, and I was thinking ‘Where is the blood coming from?’” says Darcy. “The cuts were superficial, thankfully, but at that point it was, ‘Grab anything we can downstairs and get it out.’”
Darcy and Chad shut off the electricity and grabbed their valuables and anything they could carry as the water continued to pour in.
Darcy's front yard
“Finally, it got to a point where it wasn’t safe anymore,” says Darcy. “And through the whole thing, I just kept thinking, ‘This can’t be happening.’ My five-year-old son, however, thought it was the coolest thing ever. He was like ‘Wow, look Mom, that’s so much water!’ My eight-year-old daughter was panicking, crying, and very upset, saying ‘Mom, are we going to die?’”
The water level reached three and a half feet.
“It came up to just right under our light switches,” says Darcy. “It ruined everything that was left in our basement, and we had it 80 percent finished at that point. It was devastating.”
Weirdly, almost as quickly as it began, the storm ended.
“The clouds parted and suddenly the sun came out, and everything just stopped,” says Darcy. “We’re looking out over our backyard, a good two feet of water making a lake in our backyard. From the time it started until the time it ended it was 4:07 to 4:44 p.m. We stood there in shock. We were like, ‘What do we do now?’”
Fortunately, it wasn’t even a few minutes later that the cavalry descended.
“My brother-in-law, Ryan Rayburn, who works at Cedar City Hospital as an equipment system specialist, and his wife—my sister—Bree Rayburn, who’s a house supervisor at the hospital, rushed over,” Darcy says. “My sister-in-law came and took my kids to her house so they’d feel safe and protected. A friend of the family set up a pump to try and get the water out. And suddenly, we were bombarded with neighbors, many who were strangers to us, bucketing out the water and getting things pulled out of the basement. So much help. So, so many people willing to do anything. ‘Hey, do you need a hose?’ or ‘Hey, I have extension cords,’ or ‘What do you need?’ And they stayed for hours and hours doing really hard work. It was amazing.”
The Simmons weren’t able to get all the water out of their basement until about 1 a.m. The cleanup took three days of solid, hard work.
“We had to rip out all the drywall, all the insulation, all the custom cabinets in my craft room, and get every single thing out of the basement, including all the mud,” says Darcy. “But over the course of the event, I’d say we had close to 200 people helping us at one time or another.”
The home needed several days to dry and air out, and the lake in the backyard eventually went away. But for Darcy, what has stayed with her is the goodness of the community.
“When it was happening to us, I thought for sure we had it the worst,” says Darcy. “But as I’ve talked to others, everyone suffered and got hit so hard. And how do you measure loss? Whether two inches of water or water to your ceiling? Everyone’s measurement of loss is different, but it’s still loss. And no one could have controlled this. There was just too much water at once. But what this has taught me is just how kind people really are. Someone said to me, ‘During the flood, ironically enough, we all forgot about politics, we forgot about our differences, forgot about COVID.’ We’ve been divided for so long over so many things that it was nice to see that people still do care about each other. All the work people did just to make our home feel whole again—people we don’t even know—it’s just incredible.”
Darcy says those who helped included many from her work family.
“Dr. Sanderson (neurologist at Cedar City Hospital) brought his youth group and they came and put our fence back in,” says Darcy. “My team from the clinic came and did the horrible stuff—you know, picking up all the rocks, sticks, and debris, wiping down gross dirt and stuff off of everything, and shoveling mud. They were breaking their backs for us. Other people would just show up and say ‘Look, I won’t bug you, just let me power wash your driveway,’ or ‘just let me help move those rocks.’ It was so heartwarming to feel so loved and supported.”
Caregiver volunteers assembling food boxes
Most hit by the flood didn’t have flood insurance, and many organizations have come together to help support the flood victims, including Intermountain Healthcare. Several volunteer groups Intermountain caregivers came together last week to build food boxes to support caregivers impacted by the floods. Boxes contained a variety of meals and snacks hand-picked by Intermountain dietitians, along with quick and easy recipes that use the food in the box and a meal plan with recipes. The caregiver volunteers assembled 150 food boxes that were sent to help caregivers and their families both in the Cedar City area and across the system.
“It felt good to get out there and help create these wonderful resources for our fellow caregivers who are going through a rough patch,” says Angela Choberka, a SelectHealth member equity program consultant who helped assemble food boxes. “You never know when you might need this resource; one day I might need a box.”
“I’m so grateful to our generous donors and the volunteers who gave their time to prepare the food boxes, and to our partners at Homecare who distribute the boxes to caregivers’ homes,” says Emily Stirling, caregiver social well-being manager. “Everyone who works on the food boxes pours love and kindness into the process. We hope the food boxes feel like a warm hug during times of uncertainty in caregivers’ lives.”
Intermountain Food Boxes are funded by the Caregiver Assistance Fund—money donated by community members and caregivers—and sourced from Associated Food Stores. If you’re experiencing a financial hardship and need assistance, please fill out an application for the Caregiver Assistance Fund or request an Intermountain Food Box. You can also donate to the Caregiver Assistance Fund to support fellow caregivers in need. All donations are being matched at 200% until December 31.
“Moving forward, we’ll take it a little bit at a time, step by step,” says Darcy. “But it’s been powerful to see just how much goodness there still is in the world. People are still kind.”