Cathedral City preparing for next big flood

The threat of rain is a concern in Cathedral City, where last summer a storm sent a wall of water down onto East Palm Canyon. The mud and water damaged businesses and closed East Palm Canyon. Since then, the city and the county have been working on flood control.

Construction began on the Eagle Canyon Dam in April and is expected to be finished in early 2014. Many businesses and homes were damaged including Resale Therapy and the Tramview Mobile Home Park.

Resale therapy owner Caroldean Ross says she is better prepared now for the possibility of another flood and has put sandbags at the front of her store.

Riverside County Supervisor John J. Benoit is pleased with the progress of the construction on the dam and keeping his fingers crossed a major storm doesn’t pass through before work is finished.

“60 thousand cubic yards of material has been used as part of that process and addition to that the contractor has put in some berms to protect his work so while we don’t have a dam yet we are 60 thousand cubic yards better off there is additional storage of water there. We all have our fingers crossed we don’t get the 100 year storm while we are in construction,” said Benoit.