Mudslide damages home
Accalia and Darren Hinton experienced a rude awakening Saturday morning.
The teaching aide and engineering gradutate’s basement-level apartment on Canyon Road in Logan was hit by a mudslide that caused an unknown amount of damage to the couple’s backyard.
Liquefied mud poured through a window into the Hinton’s back room, ruining furniture, books and the family computer and spilling into the kitchen.
The slide, which occured at about 5 a.m. Saturday, originated above the canal which runs along the northern edge of the island neighborhood between Canyon Road and Highway 89.
Employees of the Utah Department of Transportation, which owns the land where the slide began, speculated that the slide was casued by a broken pipe in the hillside above the canal. However, as of Saturday, the offical cause of the slide was not known. Water in the canal was quickly diverted and the structure, although now filled with debris, apears to be mostly intact.
Local Red Cross volunteers and emergency services quickly arrived to assist the family and provide physical and emotional support. They moved most of the couple’s undamaged furniture and belongings into a moving truck donated by Edward’s Furniture Company in Logan.
Volunteer leader Roxana King made certain that all of the family’s valuables were protected and that the Hintons and their pets had some familiar objects to bring into their future home.
The local Red Cross chapter has agreements with local businesses to aid victims of such calamities. The University Inn volunteered to shelter the Hintons for the weekend and they received vouchers for food at Angie’s restaurant.
King recomends that the first thing victims do when such a disaster strikes is to contact a friend or family member outside of the disaster area. She also recommends that college students living off campus get renter’s insurance, which costs on average of $8 a month and will protect your belongings against theft and disaster.
Cleanup efforts began Saturday afternoon with a small bulldozer and back-hoe moving fallen trees, mud and the remains of the backyard.
-russfuller@cc.usu.edu