Mormon volunteers fight the spring floods in Utah
Utah's Mormons take acts of God seriously, and since mid-April, a late spring snowfall, 90° temperatures and melting snow in the Wasatch and Uinta ranges have produced the worst flooding in the state's history, displacing more than 2,000 people and exacting some $200 million in damage. In response, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has mounted an extraordinary volunteer effort. Says Governor Scott M. Matheson: "The Mormon Church has the best grapevine in the world. One phone call to the church triggered the quickest network of activity I've ever seen. When you push the button, people come out in droves." Items:
> One night last week a Forest Service employee stationed in Coldwater Canyon, high above the town of North Ogden, Utah, heard trees snapping and boulders rolling. One hundred residents fled for shelter to a Mormon center moments before a river of mud slithered into three houses. North Ogden Mayor Don Colvin, who is also a Mormon Church officer, informed another church official of the crisis. In less than an hour 200 Mormon volunteers had arrived to reinforce the banks of Coldwater Creek. By 3 a.m., 5,000 sandbags were in place. Says Colvin: "People were out here all night, filling those bags like crazy. We have a fire department, but if we hadn't had those volunteers, we'd have been in deep trouble."
> Two weeks ago, mud and rocks crashed down Rudd Creek Canyon, burying at least five houses, damaging 100 more in Farmington, 17 miles north of Salt Lake City, and sending a Mormon volunteer brigade into action. Last week 15 volunteers spent an entire day cleaning out the mud-filled basement of Paul Ward, 64. They threw watermelon-size rocks onto a conveyor belt and pushed buckets of muck through a cellar window to a team of 20 men, women and children, who passed the pails from hand to hand. Says a grateful Ward: "I wasn't expecting anybody to come help. They just showed up and started working."
> Just after Memorial Day, when a dam of debris in Ward Canyon broke and sent water and mud pouring into Bountiful, ten miles north of Salt Lake City, 1,000 volunteers showed up to help. An additional 500 volunteers a day work in the Midvale gravel pit, where they perform the task of shoveling dirt into sandbags. On weekends the number of volunteers doubles: entire families show up.
Utah's ordeal has put the Mormon virtues of organization, self-reliance and unstinting community service to the test. So far, the mud is losing—without heavy involvement on the part of the Federal Government. Mormons disapprove of Government aid and prefer to deploy their resources to care for their own. Even though Governor Matheson has succeeded in getting ten Utah counties declared national disaster areas, the church will gently discourage its followers from applying for federal assistance. And the Mormon effort has been joined by volunteers from all religious backgrounds, creating some duplications of service. Mormons from Rexburg, Idaho, though eager to lend a hand in Utah, have been told by church officials that they are not yet needed. Says Elder Robert E. Wells, an executive administrator in the church: "We're always organized for emergencies. We have a tight-knit ecclesiastical order from the grass roots all the way to the top."