This question was tailor-made for Matt O'Brien, author of our title Beneath the Neon -- Life and Death in the Tunnels of Las Vegas, which we published last year.
So we put it to him and here's how he responded.
Yes, the Imperial Palace’s driveway and parking garage flood regularly. That’s because the Flamingo Wash, one of the valley’s primary drainage channels, rolls right through the property. In fact, the IP’s driveway is the Flamingo Wash.
Let me explain:
The Flamingo Wash starts in the Spring Mountains and winds east across the valley. At Industrial Road, also known as Dean Martin Drive, the wash goes underground in a six-tunnel storm drain. The drain burrows under Interstate 15, Caesars Palace, and part of Imperial Palace.
About a mile and a half downstream -- past homeless camps, a graffiti gallery, and mounds of debris -- the storm drain opens in the middle of the Imperial Palace property. The IP’s driveway doubles as a flood channel, escorting water out the back of the property and into another drain. Though the plan was scoffed at by the Clark County Planning Commission, this zoning variance was approved by the County Commission in the 1970s –- another Vegas juice job, as far as I could tell from my research.
Since opening in 1979, the Imperial Palace has done its best to work with this awkward architectural arrangement. "Flash Flood Area" signs are posted along the driveway and in the parking garage. When it rains –- Las Vegas only gets 4.5 inches a year –- it closes the driveway and garage. It doesn’t, however, close the back roads leading to the property. That’s the county’s responsibility, and the county doesn’t have the manpower to close every road that floods during heavy rains.
In 1985, after a series of summer floods that crippled Las Vegas, the Nevada Legislature authorized the creation of the Clark County Regional Flood Control District. The goals of the Flood Control District included developing a "master plan" to reduce flooding; it has been playing a spirited (and unwinnable) game of catch-up ever since.
Today, the flood-control system consists of 75 detention basins and 450 miles of channels, about 300 miles of which are underground. Another 60 basins and 400 miles of channels are planned over the next 30 years, the culmination of the Flood Control District’s master plan, at a cost of about $1.5 billion.
Until this "master plan" is completed, and even beyond its completion, Las Vegas locals and tourists should expect flooding during heavy rains. Be especially careful on and around Tropicana Avenue and Flamingo Road, which run parallel to the Tropicana and Flamingo washes. Also be careful on and around North Pecos Road, which runs parallel to the Las Vegas Wash, the valley’s lowest elevation point.
