Latest news with #Holladay
Daily Mail
15 hours ago
- Climate
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE I survived monster mudslide that wiped out my family... what I saw that night has haunted me
A mudslide crashed into three homes in Holladay, Utah, last week following a water line break, just two weeks after flash floods in While there were no casualties, one survivor of the July 15 incident described it as an 'explosion of water' bringing thick sludge and debris in its wake.
Daily Mail
6 days ago
- Climate
- Daily Mail
Utah mudslides destroy hillside mansions
A hillside water meter malfunction triggered a destructive mudslide, sending tons of mud and debris crashing into homes in one of Utah 's most upscale neighborhoods and forcing emergency evacuations. The devastating incident began shortly after 8pm on Tuesday near 3100 East Silver Hawk Drive in Holladay, where a water meter failed on a steep slope above the ritzy homes. Emergency response crews responded to reports of flooding, only to realize a large volume of mud and water had broken loose, slamming into at least three properties. One home took the brunt of the slide, with several feet of mud filling the basement. No injuries were reported, but three homes were evacuated as a precaution. 'It seemed like an explosion of water coming out from up there, and it just started rushing down,' resident Paul Holmes, whose basement apartment was inundated, told KSL-TV5. 'We can't even get the doors open because the mud is keeping them shut, so we have to go through the back windows.' Holmes said the damage is severe and will require a full gut of the space. 'It's a full restoration - like, tear it down to the studs,' he said. Authorities believed a water main had ruptured at first, however, it was later discovered by Salt Lake City Public Utilities officials that the break came from the sacrificial bottom of a water meter box - a built-in fail-safe designed to release pressure and prevent a full-blown pipe burst. 'The meter did exactly what it was supposed to do,' Chloe Morroni, communications manager for the utility department, said. 'It's just - the topography out here certainly caused some issues,' she said, adding that the same design on a flat surface would have likely caused 'no issues.' Normally, the release would saturate nearby ground, but in this case, the meter sat roughly 50 to 75 feet above the neighborhood on a steep incline, she explained. The released water quickly destabilized the slope, triggering the devastating slide. 'I look out the garage, and I just see all this, like, dirty water gushing and just a bunch of stuff falling. It was just really chaotic,' Piper Knight, a local resident who witnessed the slide, said. Local fire departments worked for over two hours to contain the flow, building dikes - barriers to hold back water - to redirect mud and shut down the water source. City utility crews reportedly stayed on the scene overnight and into Wednesday morning. Now, the 21-year-old meter will be replaced with a modern 'smart' version, according to Morroni. In addition, the city will bring in contractors to shore up the hillside and conduct geotechnical assessments to determine what additional protections may be needed. 'We'll do what we can to not only replace it, but make it even stronger,' Jason Draper, chief engineer for Salt Lake City Public Utilities, told the outlet, adding that the city is looking into 'adding retaining walls.' Officials have since acknowledged that aging infrastructure - especially in hilly terrain - poses unique risks. 'We hate to see this happen. It's so unfortunate. I'm thankful no one was injured and the water line was not broken itself, so that it did not knock a whole bunch of homes out of water,' Morroni said. The Utah Division of Public Utilities have also emphasized the importance of funding long-term infrastructure upgrades. 'The Division strongly supports a rate-funded capital reserve account to ensure the companies can replace aging infrastructure and respond to emergencies,' Division Director Chris Parker said in a statement.
Daily Mail
6 days ago
- Climate
- Daily Mail
Devastating mudslides ruin hillside mansions in ritzy Utah neighborhood
A hillside water meter malfunction triggered a destructive mudslide, sending tons of mud and debris crashing into homes in one of Utah 's most upscale neighborhoods and forcing emergency evacuations. The devastating incident began shortly after 8pm on Tuesday near 3100 East Silver Hawk Drive in Holladay, where a water meter failed on a steep slope above the ritzy homes. Emergency response crews responded to reports of flooding, only to realize a large volume of mud and water had broken loose, slamming into at least three properties. One home took the brunt of the slide, with several feet of mud filling the basement. No injuries were reported, but three homes were evacuated as a precaution. 'It seemed like an explosion of water coming out from up there, and it just started rushing down,' resident Paul Holmes, whose basement apartment was inundated, told KSL-TV5. 'We can't even get the doors open because the mud is keeping them shut, so we have to go through the back windows.' Holmes said the damage is severe and will require a full gut of the space. 'It's a full restoration - like, tear it down to the studs,' he said. Authorities believed a water main had ruptured at first, however, it was later discovered by Salt Lake City Public Utilities officials that the break came from the sacrificial bottom of a water meter box - a built-in fail-safe designed to release pressure and prevent a full-blown pipe burst. 'The meter did exactly what it was supposed to do,' Chloe Morroni, communications manager for the utility department, said. 'It's just - the topography out here certainly caused some issues,' she said, adding that the same design on a flat surface would have likely caused 'no issues.' Normally, the release would saturate nearby ground, but in this case, the meter sat roughly 50 to 75 feet above the neighborhood on a steep incline, she explained. The released water quickly destabilized the slope, triggering the devastating slide. 'I look out the garage, and I just see all this, like, dirty water gushing and just a bunch of stuff falling. It was just really chaotic,' Piper Knight, a local resident who witnessed the slide, said. Local fire departments worked for over two hours to contain the flow, building dikes - barriers to hold back water - to redirect mud and shut down the water source. City utility crews reportedly stayed on the scene overnight and into Wednesday morning. Now, the 21-year-old meter will be replaced with a modern 'smart' version, according to Morroni. In addition, the city will bring in contractors to shore up the hillside and conduct geotechnical assessments to determine what additional protections may be needed. 'We'll do what we can to not only replace it, but make it even stronger,' Jason Draper, chief engineer for Salt Lake City Public Utilities, told the outlet, adding that the city is looking into 'adding retaining walls.' Officials have since acknowledged that aging infrastructure - especially in hilly terrain - poses unique risks. 'We hate to see this happen. It's so unfortunate. I'm thankful no one was injured and the water line was not broken itself, so that it did not knock a whole bunch of homes out of water,' Morroni said. The Utah Division of Public Utilities have also emphasized the importance of funding long-term infrastructure upgrades. 'The Division strongly supports a rate-funded capital reserve account to ensure the companies can replace aging infrastructure and respond to emergencies,' Division Director Chris Parker said in a statement. But for residents like Holmes, the immediate concern is recovery. His driveway remains buried under mud, and access to his home is limited. 'I've already talked to a disaster restoration company,' he said. 'It's going to take a lot of work to fix the damage.'
Yahoo
21-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Black-owned Redemption acquires Utah bank
This story was originally published on Banking Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Banking Dive newsletter. In March 2023, less than a month after a group of Black investors said they were purchasing a Utah community bank, Silicon Valley Bank failed. That led Redemption Holding Co. to do 'a hard reset' with its acquisition of Holladay Bank & Trust, said Ashley Bell, the holding company's CEO. Bank valuations tumbled and 'there was a lot of uncertainty at that time, from a regulatory posture, about what was going to be the new benchmark of scrutiny,' he said. Bell moved to reprice the deal given the valuation shift post-SVB, snagging what he said was a better return for investors. He declined to comment on the terms of the deal, although he said 'it's about the same price to start a bank from scratch, de novo.' On the regulatory approvals side, 'we did see an expedited sort of interest in getting this across the finish line' after the November election, Bell said. The deal closure, announced Thursday, marks the first time an existing U.S. commercial bank has become a Black-owned depository institution through acquisition. And the lender, which becomes the 24th Black-owned bank in the country, stands as a counterbalance to the dwindling number of Black-owned financial institutions. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. counted 47 Black-owned banks as of 2022. 'It worked out for us,' Bell said of the process, which kicked off in December 2022. 'It just took longer than we would have expected.' Bell and his co-owners, Bernice A. King, daughter of the late Martin Luther King Jr., and former NFL player and investor Dhani Jones, had to assess whether a Black-owned bank could survive in the largely white Salt Lake City metro area, when Black-owned lenders are generally launched within Black communities. 'We felt this was a great test of capitalism,' he said. The group aimed to raise at least half of the needed capital within Utah, 'so that people there would have a vested interest' in the bank's success, Bell said. They were able to do that, counting the Huntsman Family Foundation, the Larry H. & Gail Miller Family Foundation and Ally Financial as investors. Bell declined to share how much the group raised in total. About 65% of voting shareholders are African-American small-business owners, said Bell, who's also founder and CEO of Black-owned fintech Ready Life. Holladay, founded in 1974, is a one-branch community bank serving the Salt Lake City area. The bank, which had about $65.7 million in assets as of March 31, has a clean balance sheet, management willing to stay after the deal closes, and is consistently profitable – an 'extraordinarily rare starting point for a Black-owned bank in America,' Bell said. Bruce Jensen, former CEO of Town & Country Bank in Utah and a longtime banker in the state, has been tapped as Redemption's CEO, Bell said. Katie Spratling, daughter of Holladay Bank's founder, will remain the bank's president, Bell said. As for whether Holladay customers will remain with Redemption, 'that was the main question,' he said. 'I think we've answered it.' Bell and King engaged in a 'full-court press' in 2023 to draw attention to the acquisition, to see whether the bank could change hands and accounts would remain at the lender, if 'the only thing that really changed was the color of the people that owned it.' The bank has not seen a significant drop in assets, other than a small dip immediately after SVB failed, Bell said. At the time the deal was announced in March 2023, the bank had $68 million in assets. The next hurdle is the official bank name change from Holladay to Redemption in about two months, he said, 'and we'll do the work.' The majority of the bank's customers will be entrepreneurs as the lender focuses on commercial and small-business lending, said Bell, a former White House policy adviser for entrepreneurship and regional administrator with the Small Business Administration. The bank is building a 'robust' tech platform it plans on launching in the latter half of 2025 to serve small-business customers, Bell said. 'We see ourselves as a minority version of Ally,' Bell said, adding that the investor group considers the Utah-chartered digital lender a 'mentor bank' that is 'helping us start this journey of being fully digital.' That digital journey is imperative to reach younger generations, Bell said. 'Many of the entrepreneurs who need our services are gig economy workers who see Cash App and Venmo as their bank,' he said. 'We have to bridge that gap.' The bank's board and investors believe physical presence is essential, too, although the bank will think outside the box in adding brick-and-mortar locations, Bell said. He envisions Redemption establishing locations outside Utah that would be similar to Capital One cafes, forgoing vaults and deposit boxes to concentrate on financial wellness and community services. 'We will lean into expansion,' he said, citing proximity to college campuses, including those near Atlanta or Baton Rouge, Louisiana, as a potential focus. Formerly redlined communities still lack banks, Bell said, and Redemption wants to show younger consumers 'every bank is not the same.' In 1968, when MLK called on Black Americans to move their money to Black-owned banks, there were some 145 Black-owned lenders in the U.S., Bell noted. Today, 'it's a sad state of affairs,' he said. Bell said he hopes Redemption has created a blueprint for more Black banks to emerge and grow, although he stressed that in the current banking landscape, lenders can't rely on serving one group of people in a finite location, he said. Recommended Reading Black banks have dwindled in number, but a new one's coming Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
14-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Opinion: Will we stand idly by as a son is torn from his Utah family and deported to one of the world's most inhumane prisons?
The story of the U.D.M.C. family of Holladay, Utah, is as compelling as any refugee story since President Trump's immigration crackdown began on January 23, 2025. That mass expulsion campaign is striking fear in the hearts of millions of immigrants — not just those who come illegally, but also families like the U.D.M.C family, who followed all the rules to enter the U.S. legally. The U.D.M.C family — a father, mother, two sons and a daughter-in-law — are Latter-day Saints from Venezuela, a failing country where living conditions are dire, marked by political instability and economic collapse; where 70% of the population lacks adequate access to food, healthcare, clean water, electricity and educational opportunity. Venezuela is also one of the most violent and corrupt countries in the world. When U.D.M.C and his family took to the streets to protest corruption and election fraud in the Maduro government, police detained them and confiscated their ID cards. Soon they began receiving death threats. A lawyer friend advised them to leave the country or face arrest and imprisonment. In 2019, they fled Venezuela hoping to emigrate to the U.S. The family's path was long and difficult. After living for a few years in neighboring Colombia, they trekked mostly on foot through Guatemala and Honduras to Mexico, reaching Mexico City last year. There, they used U.S. Customs and Border Protection's CBP One mobile app to apply for humanitarian parole and permission to enter the U.S. legally, which was approved. After crossing the Mexican border legally on August 22, 2024, the family traveled to Utah and settled in Holladay, where they were embraced by their neighborhood and local Latter-day Saint congregation. They located housing, obtained work permits, found employment and applied for asylum. They are now self-supporting and law-abiding taxpayers. The family was granted an asylum hearing date in 2028, entitling them to reside in the U.S. legally until their asylum applications are ruled on. The makings of a true American success story? It wasn't to be. Someone was left behind. As the family entered the U.S. last August, their 19-year-old son Uriel David, a young man without any criminal history who speaks no English and suffers health problems, was torn from his family, arrested and detained. He has since been swallowed up in a harrowing saga of human tragedy that is stealing national headlines and rapidly becoming a stain on our national character. Originally detained in San Diego, Uriel David's path has been traced by his family to ICE's El Valle Detention Center in Texas. There, according to the findings of a federal judge in Washington, D.C., in the early morning hours of March 15, 2025, 140 Venezuelans held by the Department of Homeland Security 'were awakened from their cells, taken to a separate room, shackled and informed they were being transferred. To where? That they were not told.' They were loaded onto planes. 'As the planes waited on the tarmac,' the court found, 'many passengers aboard reportedly began to panic and beg officials for more information, but none was provided.' The planes eventually landed in El Salvador, where the detainees were transferred into CECOT, a brutal Salvadoran mega-prison known for torture, beatings and death. Based on video from a news report, Uriel David's family identified him among the detainees transferred to CECOT. New cases are being filed every week in federal courts across the U.S. alleging similar deportations of immigrants spirited away to CECOT or other foreign prisons without notice, hearings or any other semblance of the Fifth Amendment due process rights to which every person in the U.S. is entitled, citizen or noncitizen. In every case so far, courts have found that the Trump administration stripped these detainees of their rights by not allowing them a meaningful opportunity to challenge their removal before being flown to El Salvador. Judges are ordering the government to vindicate the detainees' rights, even if it means returning them to the United States. In some cases, Trump officials blame administrative error for their actions. In other cases, they stonewall, daring the courts to punish them for contempt of court. In one case, a judge ordered a flight of detainees to turn around midair, an order which was ignored. In three other pending cases, federal judges determined that Trump officials expelled people from the country in violation of standing court orders. In one of these cases, federal appeals court judge Roger Gregory wrote, 'We are confronted again with the efforts of the executive branch to set aside the rule of law in pursuit of its goals.' Illegal deportations can never in good conscience be brushed off as mere administrative errors or excusable violations of law. They are matters of life and death. CECOT, where Uriel David is believed to be held, is the largest prison in Latin America. It houses up to 40,000 of the most violent criminals — rival gang members whose internecine wars for decades terrorized all of El Salvador, plunging it into the grip of economic and social chaos and triggering mass emigration. Prisoners in CECOT are held for life in an 'exception' to the Salvadoran constitution and without any semblance of real due process. Housed 23.5 hours per day in harsh conditions, they are crowded 80 to 100 per cell. Inmates sleep on rows of metal bunks stacked three high without mattresses, pillows or blankets. CECOT has no rehabilitation, recreation or education programs. Visits by lawyers and family members are strictly banned. No telephone calls are allowed. No cell phone service exists within two kilometers of the prison. The Salvadoran government admits that some inmates are held in CECOT without cause, claiming as an excuse that it is sometimes difficult to determine which inmates are guilty of crimes and which are innocent. In El Salvador, incarceration of innocents is considered the price of law and order. That policy suits the Trump White House fine — it pays El Salvador $6 million a year for the privilege of deporting our immigrants to CECOT. In Uriel David's case, his family has been unable to learn the reason for his detention and deportation. It is possible that a border guard misinterpreted his tattoos as gang-related? No. His tattoos are innocuous: the word 'familia,' his birthdate, his mother's signature, a crown of thorns, two wings and the lucky number '777.' None of these are gang-related. Uriel David has a constitutional right to prove this to an immigration judge before being expelled from the country. Shouldn't that matter? Apparently not to Trump officials. A federal judge recently found that 'significant evidence has come to light indicating that many of those currently entombed in CECOT have no connection to [a] gang and thus languish in a foreign prison on flimsy, even frivolous, accusations.' One thing is certain: no one, including Uriel David, would knowingly agree to be transferred to CECOT. Yet, CECOT is Uriel's life now and for its duration, absent a public outcry loud enough to secure his release. To begin with, his family, their neighbors, our Salt Lake City community and all Americans are entitled to know exactly what happened to him and why. That is not a demand — it is a necessity in a society that considers itself civilized and loyal to a constitution like ours, which protects citizens and noncitizens alike from being held in custody without due process. A nation that tramples individual rights in pursuit of political gain will not last long as a democratic republic. I ask all Utahns: Will we stand idly by while Uriel David is torn from his Utah family and deported to one of the world's most inhumane prisons? A few days ago, the Trump White House brought Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran immigrant unlawfully deported to CECOT, back to the U.S. after falsely claiming for months that this was not possible. Obviously, it is possible. The rallying cry should now be: 'YOU BROUGHT BACK KILMAR ABREGO GARCIA — NOW BRING BACK URIEL DAVID!'
