Utah’s Beaver County Commission declared a state of emergency Tuesday following days of flash flooding and debris flows near the Cottonwood Fire burn scar that have washed out roads and damaged infrastructure.

The commission passed the declaration unanimously in an emergency meeting.

“We are very appreciative of all the efforts that have been in place during the fire and the recent floods that no serious harm or life has been lost,” Wade Hollingshead, Beaver County commissioner, said during the meeting, KSL News Radio reported.

State Route153 through Beaver Canyon is closed indefinitely after flash flooding and debris flows severely damaged or completely washed away the road in several locations Sunday, according to the Utah Department of Transportation. Between mileposts 7.5 and 10.5, multiple sections of road have been destroyed, and near milepost 14, floodwater undercut the highway and washed away roughly half of the roadway. UDOT said it is assessing the damage from the air and ground and developing a repair plan in coordination with Beaver County and Beaver City. 

The emergency declaration follows a flash flood emergency on July 19, only the second such alert the local National Weather Service office has ever issued, meteorologist David Church told KUTV. Church said the initial flash flood warning gave about 90 minutes of lead time before the flood wave reached the town of Beaver, and the upgrade to a flash flood emergency gave about 40 minutes of additional warning. That event sent debris flows into the Grove and North Creek neighborhoods and damaged the town's water system. 

A second flash flood warning, issued just before 6 a.m. Tuesday, prompted an immediate evacuation order for residents within a quarter mile of the Beaver River, including the Grove neighborhood, before the warning expired at 9 a.m., KUTV reported.

Beaver County announced a new camera system in a July 15 joint Facebook post with Beaver City, saying the county had installed its own early warning system with two live feed cameras monitoring stream flows on the Beaver River Channel. 

During Sunday's flash flood emergency, the first camera appeared offline, and the second camera briefly showed a single frame timestamped at 3:14 p.m., 14 minutes after the evacuation order, before going blank again.