The Cache County chapter of the American Red Cross provided about 150 sandwiches and drinks to volunteers in Richmond. As of press time, Mark Fishburn, the Red Cross team leader, had not relocated any families due to flooding. He did not expect to, either, he said, because most families had relatives or friends who could take them in for a night or two.

The next hardest-hit area was Brigham City, where the usually tiny Box Elder Creek overflowed its banks about 4:30 a.m., forcing two families from their homes and flooding others. City officials received reports of up to seven homes damaged by flooding.

City officials declared a state of emergency, but by late in the day they were getting the upper hand.

"We're trying to fight the battle," said Jim Buchanan, Brigham City's director of emergency management. "We're taking back the creek."

After the rains subsided and about 1,000 people, including city and county workers and volunteers, filled and placed 20,000 sandbags, water in Mayor's Pond, a detention pond sitting between the Mantua Reservoir and Brigham City, began to drop.

That was a relief for Buchanan and Brigham City Mayor Lou Ann Christensen, who had a plan in place to evacuate the residents near the pond if the water came close to breaching.

Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. called Christensen while Department of Public Safety Commissioner Robert Flowers paid a personal visit.

Their talk was brief, but Huntsman gave Christensen encouragement, she said. He promised to visit Brigham City today if problems increased overnight. Emergency personnel planned to keep a vigil over the creek, Mayor's Pond and Mantua reservoir during that time.

Brigham City, despite having a state of emergency, is actually patting itself on the back. Starting in the middle of January, the city orchestrated a cleanup in which debris was cleared over a 6 1/2-mile stretch of the creek bed, Buchanan said.

Parents-to-be Cade and Janie Palmer were residents in a basement apartment until floodwaters breached a retaining wall built after the 1983 high-water year and flowed through their back yard and into their stairwell. The force of the water broke the door, hinges and all, from the jamb about 5:15 a.m.

The Palmers scrambled to salvage their photo albums, a banjo and a harmonica. They had to rescue a rabbit, two parakeets and two tortoises from the water, Janie Palmer said.

She said she's glad her baby isn't due until July. But the flood still came at a bad time.

This week is finals week at Weber State University. And she hopes her professors understand.

A piece of cruel irony happened last night before the Palmers went to bed while rain was falling and Chad said jokingly, "Let's put everything on the highest shelf."