Douglas County has been the recipient of plenty of rain for more than a week. And some of the mountain storms created washes and runoff that flowed right onto people's property. The water quickly flowed downhill, following the path of least resistance.
"It created a sheet action across the whole landscape," Ralph Thomas, District Manager for the Carson City BLM District said. "If you look at some of this area out here, it moved six inches to a foot of material from up the slope, clear across the road."
But some of the water did not make it across some of the dirt roads on and around Hot Springs Mountain. Some of the roads captured the runoff and served as a pathway that lead into neighborhoods, down below.
"It will follow the road downhill to wherever it comes out and often it comes out by a street or by a subdivision," John Colbourn, Water Resource Specialist for University of Nevada Cooperative Extension said.
Mark Garic lives right next to BLM land. He says that is what happened to his property this week. It comes one year after a previous flash flood that cost him thousands of dollars.
"The best thing about it is that nobody got hurt," Garic said. "Nobody died but we keep losing property."
Thomas and other members of the Bureau of Land Management have evaluated the area above Garic's home. They agree that changes to the dirt road could reduce flood risk. The road is designed for vehicles with 4-wheel drive. So, Thomas says adding dips along 300 yards of the road could have kept water flowing past it instead of down it.
"I think it may have changed a little bit," Thomas said. "It would have got some of the water off, faster. It wouldn't have eliminated it entirely, but it may have lessened, potentially, some of the wash and stuff down below here."
Some of the public lands, east of Garic's house, are popular areas for riding motorcycles and ATVs. Garic says their trails also add to flood dangers. Some of those trails collect the water and can erode very quickly, turning into deep crevices. He says he's not against this time of use, unless it's near homes.
"We need to ask the off-road vehicle operators to operate their vehicles on some four million acres that they have available to them out there, away from our house," Garic said.
Thomas says the trails can influence the water's path, but says it is not likely that it had much of an impact on this week's flash floods.
"They're going to capture the water," Thomas said. "Basically, they change some of the dynamics on the hill, as far as the sheet flows, and stuff. But this time, there was just so much water going across the whole landscape, I don't think they made much difference."
