Crews, regulars watch and wait as waters rise at Murray City Park

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MURRAY — Crews and regulars alike were watching Little Cottonwood Creek closely Thursday as waters continued to rise at Murray City Park.

Street superintendent Lynn Potter said workers had already removed three pedestrian bridges and had sandbagged vulnerable areas.

On Thursday evening, water was lapping up against the bottom of a larger bridge for vehicle traffic in the center of the park.

“Yesterday it was probably about a foot below that,” said park regular Eric Gerrard. “Our marker was to wait for it to hit the bridge and today is the first day it’s doing that.”

Potter said crews were hoping to keep the road open.

“If it comes over the bridge, it’ll also wash out into the parking lot,” Potter said. “We usually have to close this road off.”

Potter said the creek in the area was flowing at 420 cubic feet per second, still 200 CFS below where water has been known to spread to grassy areas and well below the 800 CFS known to cause wider-spread flooding.

Though he said crews had prepared as much as possible for what the coming weeks will bring, Potter acknowledged outcomes at the park are also dependent on a measure of luck following an “unprecedented” snow year in the mountains.

“Nineties — we hope we don’t get to the 90s,” Potter said. “Really at the current temperature where you’d have problems is if you’re running high CFSs in the river and then you get a heavy rainstorm and then there’s nowhere for that water to go. That could be an issue.”

Murray City Park is considered a floodplain, and crews also hoped to avoid any outcomes like those seen in the area more than a decade ago.

“This was all underwater here too — the parking lot, that whole playground behind us,” Gerrard said.

Potter said it could be well after Memorial Day before crews find out how much flooding the park will see. He urged people — children and adults alike — to keep a safe distance from the high and fast-moving creek.

“Safety’s the top priority so that’s our biggest concern,” Potter said. “We’ve got signs up along the river, ‘swift water, stay back’ — stay away from it.”

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