Snow cuts chance of floods in Southern Utah

ST. GEORGE — Snow piled up in the mountains of southern Utah on Wednesday as another storm swept through the region.

"As long as that moisture falls as snow, it lowers the chance of any flooding," said Washington County Emergency Services Director Dean Cox. "I don't anticipate any real flooding from this storm, but we're going to monitor the reservoirs anyway, just to make sure we're on top of it."

Snow was falling in the Pine Valley and in the Kolob mountain areas of Zion National Park. One man, an employee of Amerigas who was doing some service work in the area, was rescued after being stuck in nearly 3 feet of snow on Kolob, said Cox.

"We decided to call our East Side Search and Rescue and be aggressive about moving him out of there, since we had a few hours of daylight," he said, adding with the new snow and freezing temperatures it would be dangerous for anyone to spend the night outside on Kolob mountain.

The Virgin River was flowing heavily, as was the Santa Clara River, but Cox said flooding was not an immediate worry.

"I've got a deputy monitoring Baker Reservoir every half hour tonight," he said, adding the reservoir is flowing over its spillway. "Gunlock Reservoir is 80 percent of normal, so we'll watch that one too."

Rainfall was heavy at times throughout the county, but no one seemed to be complaining, Cox added. Both Kane and Washington counties are under a flood watch until early Thursday, and people are being encouraged to stay away from unfamiliar areas.