Torrential rainfall causes flooding along Railway

WORLAND - Mother Nature brought down over an inch of rain in about 25 minutes last Wednesday, creating some flooding along Railway Avenue in Worland.

Washakie County Emergency Management/Homeland Security Director Kami Neighbors said she was informed by the National Weather Service that the severe thunderstorm that went through the city in the early evening Aug. 21, brought 1.1 inches of rain in 25 minutes. The official precipitation record from the National Weather Service at the Worland Municipal Airport showed .55 inches.

According to the NWS, Worland has seen officially 1 inch of precipitation in August, .64 inches above normal for August.

"It was a slow moving storm," Neighbors said, adding that it is not typical for Worland to get that much rain.

She said the storm seemed to center itself over the city, with the largest amount of moisture reported inside the city limits.

Neighbors estimated several inches of water ran along Railway at the storm's peak.

City of Worland Public Works Superintendent Brian Burky said, "There was nothing wrong with the storm sewer system. We check everything after and it was just that the storm brought more water than the storm sewer can handle."

Water surrounded the fire hall with the flooding along Railway going from the fire hall north to Pulliam, Burky said.

He added that water backed into the floor of the city shop and he received reports of water backing into other buildings around the city.

Burky said the surge of water ended up at the sewer lagoon and they had to monitor the lagoon closely for a couple of hours, using extra pumps as needed to keep levels down.

Along with the rain came small hail that some residents reported damaging gardens and stripping paint off trim on buildings.

FIRES

In addition to rain and hail last week, Mother Nature has started a few fires.

There have been seven lightning fires started in the Worland, Cody, and Lander district of the Bureau of Land Management in the last couple of weeks, with five of those fires in the Worland area. Bureau of Land Management Public Affairs Officer Sarah Beckwith said that the largest of the fires was the Buffalo Creek Fire which was 136 acres in size. A recent fire on Sunday, Aug. 25 just south of Worland, named the Hubble Draw Fire, was listed at 146 acres, with that fire under investigation but not thought to be a lightning-caused incident.

Staff writer Seth Romsa contributed to this story.