Retired UNR biology and ornithology professor Alan Gubanich has lived in his one-story home with a big, green backyard facing a sagebrush-covered hill for over two decades. His wife, Teresa, helped build the house on the cul-de-sac more than 40 years ago.
The couple was watching a movie on Friday afternoon when the power went out. Water, then mud, came rushing in.
“It looked like a river coming through the doggy door,” Gubanich recalled.
Three inches of muck filled almost every room. The deluge was so powerful that it shoved open a door and pushed so much debris against the garage door that it bent outward.
The movement lasted for about an hour, but the cleanup will be a long journey. The neighborhood streets and the inside of Gubanich’s home were still coated in dried mud nearly a week later. Chairs, lamps, and boxes were scattered across the front lawn. His wife had been wrapping her Indigenous pottery, and Gubanich salvaged his computer, but wasn’t sure how his art supplies would survive.
“I was getting ready to start doing more watercolor, so all of our brushes, my watercolor pads, colored pencils, pastels, all under about close to three feet of water and mud,” Gubanich said.
Over the last few days, it’s been a lot of shoveling, as friends, strangers, and former students help remove mud and personal belongings from inside the home.
“It makes me tear up. I just can’t believe I’m getting this kind of help from people I don’t even know, plus a lot of people that I've known for years,” Gubanich said.
The couple doesn’t have flood insurance. Their property is not in the FEMA-designated flood zone.
“You’d never think it was going to happen,” Gubanich said.
This isn't the first time a flash flood has hit the area. Almost exactly two years ago, a flash flood impacted 100 homes in Hidden Valley. Officials encourage residents to consider flood insurance, even if they don’t live in a flood zone.
Washoe County officials are requesting help at the state and federal levels, said the county’s Emergency Management Administrator Kelly Echeverria.
Echeverria believed the county would hit its public assistance financial threshold and need additional funds. She said federal funding would help not just Washoe but also Lyon County, which was affected by the incident as well.
“The local government doesn’t just have endless pockets of money, neither does the state. We want to provide for our citizens,” Echeverria said.
National Weather Service hydrologist Tim Bardsley said the neighborhood sits on a fan-shaped area, where gravel, wood, and debris accumulate over time. These are common in the Mountain West and are prone to unpredictable floods. However, most people don’t realize their homes are built on these areas.
Bardsley said typical drainage systems can’t handle intense floods.
“These events are quite rare, but also it’s very expensive to build to that level,” Bardsley said.
Storms like this usually last 10-15 minutes before moving on, Bardsley said, but this one stayed for an hour.
Bardsley said it’s hard for homeowners to prepare in advance. However, he said the homeowners’ associations in these neighborhoods should properly maintain retention basins. These man-made ponds, designed to control stormwater runoff, are strong preventative measures.
And, he said, check the weather.
“I think people get used to this very dry climate, the desert, we don’t have flooding problems, but clearly that’s not the case, and we get reminded with these kinds of events,” Bardsley said.
Because the area is susceptible to flooding, Echeverria said Washoe County is working with Nevada flood action groups, Nevada Silver Jackets, and the Nevada Flood Awareness Communications Team and the Floodplain Management Association, to improve flood preparedness communication. This includes educating people on flood zones and insurance for future flooding.
For the time being, Gubanich and his wife are staying with a friend and looking for a place to rent. A GoFundMe has been set up to help them. He shared his favorite memory of the home.
“When she and I used to go on our birding trips to Central and South America, and then come back and look at all the photos, that’s my favorite memory, rather than just spending every day with my wife,” Gubanich said.
But even as he faces uncertainty about the future, Gubanich ensures the bird feeders are filled.
