Blame it on Ralph Engelstad. The now-deceased casino owner was able to afford to build what once was called Imperial Palace (now The Linq) on Strip acreage by purchasing land that sat on the Flamingo Wash. However, unlike other casinos, Engelstad simply let nature take its course. The result was a parking garage that flooded "About every time it rains," according to the Clark County Fire Department’s Bob Leinbach, speaking to the Las Vegas Sun in 2004. (Drainage tunnels run under The Orleans, New York-New York and MGM Grand, to name other casinos built across washes.)
After flood waters trapped two men in a Ford Mustang during an April 2, 2004 deluge, requiring a Fire Department rescue, Sun reporter Molly Ball asked Imperial Palace spokesman Jeremy Handel (now with the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority) about the problem and found that "despite urging from flood-control officials, the Imperial Palace has no plans to make its parking garage more flood-safe." Said Handel, "All we can do, it seems, is just monitor the flood situation and look out for everybody. If we could influence the weather in any way, I'm sure we would."
Flooding of the washes is not to be taken lightly. Clark County was declared a federal disaster after the so-called Hundred Year Flood in 1999, when three inches of rain inundated Las Vegas in the space of 90 minutes. Two hundred swift-water rescues had to be performed.
The two men in the Mustang were more fortunate than an unnamed, 25-year-old woman who was swept out of her car on Arville Street on July 16, 1990. Her dead body was later found in the lower level of the Imperial Palace parking garage. An August 1983 deluge threatened to swamp the casino floor, sending 500 gamblers fleeing onto Las Vegas Boulevard. "Mud oozed into more than 20 rooms … The swimming pool was filled with sand and debris," reported United Press International.
In 2005, Engelstad’s heirs sold the Imperial Palace to Harrah’s Entertainment, which was expected to demolish the property to make way for a new megaresort. However, Harrah’s could not decide on a strategy for moving forward with the site and, by 2008, was so heavily encumbered with debt that a teardown-and-rebuild was prohibitively expensive. Harrah’s became Caesars Entertainment and, in like fashion, tried to perfume the Imperial Palace pig by redressing the exterior, the hotel rooms, and the public areas, renaming the result The Quad, subsequently further upgraded, inside and out, to The LINQ Hotel. Trouble is, the parking garage was untouched and still sits atop the Flamingo Wash.
During a flash flood on Sept. 8, 2014, the Sun reported "the parking garage at The Quad flooded with water during the storm, and a person wearing a white construction helmet who tried to brave the current was swept out of the vehicle entrance. Fox 5 news posted a submitted video on its website that showed the person moving at the water's whim …"
The unfortunate laborer was rescued by some of his colleagues and, by 7 p.m., it was business as usual at The Quad – except in the garage, still plagued with standing water. Visitors were directed to park at the Flamingo. "A gush of rapidly moving water at least 6 inches deep and more than a block wide beneath the High Roller [Ferris wheel] carried with it tree branches, water bottles and other debris," the Sun observed. LINQ Promenade employee Ana Ele told the newspaper, "I’m originally from the Philippines and it’s like this every day."
Unless and until Caesars demolishes the The IP/Quad/LINQ's garage to cure the fundamental inherited defect, we will probably continue to be treated to flash floods on the Strip and dramatic video like this and like this.
