City declares water emergency
By Suzanne Werre
Editor
Underwood declared a water state of emergency Monday morning following a deluge of about 5-1/2 inches of rain that came Saturday, which caused a lot of overland flooding Sunday and Monday.
Several homeowners have spent the last few days pumping water out of their basements and the city’s water/sewer infrastructure has not been able to keep up with the inundation of water.
"It wasn’t that anything was plugged," said City Commissioner Jim Bailey. "It was just too much water.
"What doesn’t go to the south comes to the east right down (Roosevelt). Roosevelt was full curb to curb, the whole street," he continued. "We had water in our basement. It’s just something everyone is going to have to deal with."
By declaring a state of emergency, the city will be able to tap into city and possibly county and state funds to help deal with the water situation.
"It goes on to the county so that they’re aware, and then it goes on to the state emergency management so that the state is aware of what’s going on," said County Auditor Diane Schell.
