Flood — Blaine, Idaho

2017-05-01 to 2017-05-31 · near Sun Vly, Blaine, Idaho

Event narrative

Rain on top of continued snow melt pushed the Big Wood River to flood stage and eventually reaching moderate and major flood stage at Hailey. The entire Big Wood River Valley encountered major flooding with as many as 5,000 evacuations from Bellevue to Hailey to Ketchum and Sun Valley by May 6th. Many people went without electricity in the valley today with water pumps also running continually with major flood damage in basement homes. One home in north Ketchum on Empire Creek Road suffered a death on May 10th when a man died in a basement trying to assist with pumps to remove over 6 feet of water from the basement. The evacuation order reached 24 homes in Blaine County along the Big Wood River by mid month. Costs of flood damage reached 10 million dollars in the county. Levee repair costs were included and damage included agriculture, homes, businesses, roads, bridges resorts, government infrastructure and preserves. Sand bagging was continual by volunteers throughout the month as well. the flooding caused extensive power pole damage. The Big Wood River spent the entire month exceeding and receding from flood stage in Blaine County with the worst flooding during the first two weeks of the month.

Wider weather episode

Winter snow melt continued from record winter snowfall and flooding continued throughout much of May in much of southeast Idaho especially in the central mountains and along the Big Wood River.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (43.8023, -114.4917)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 704324. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.