Walker River Irrigation District general manager Bert Bryan reported Mason Valley experienced peak flows of about 3,830 CFS within the past month.
Photo by Steve Ranson.
This year’s Night in the Country festival in Yerington, Lyon County’s largest event benefiting the Boys and Girls Clubs of Mason Valley, should remain unaffected by the county’s flooding events, according to Nick Beaton, BGCMV director of development.
“We don’t anticipate it to impact the actual festival,” Beaton said. “It’s going to be the ingress. For the actual event itself, we do not anticipate the flooding to have any impact on the festival portion, largely in part due to Peri and Sons crushing it on mitigation, which has saved it not only on the levees but saved the entire town.”
Beaton said where the main festival occurs near Miller Lane has been closed for more than a month after the Walker River reached moderate flood stage. The county collaborated with the Walker River Irrigation and local agencies and took emergency measures to reinforce critical infrastructure to uphold levees and dikes with heavy equipment May 23 to protect low-lying areas from increasing flows that had reached more than 4,000 cubic feet per second.
NITC has been working closely with the Nevada Department of Transportation to ensure there will be flaggers at every major intersection in Yerington to assist vehicles as festival attendees enter town.
“We have so many early camp check-ins now, the ingress is split up between Wednesday and Thursday,” he said. “It’s just that traffic plan change. We’ve worked with just about every local agency. There will be a ton of flaggers on those busy intersections.”
Drivers arriving from Las Vegas will find Mason Bridge has been closed due to flooding, but Beaton said Lyon County has done a great job of planning and managing the levees to assist with water containment.
“There’s been very little property damage,” he said.
Officials expect Night in the Country will see another full year, Beaton said. The event is scheduled for July 20 to 22.
For information about Night in the Country, visit https://nightinthecountrynv.org. For information about the BGCMV, visit https://www.bgcmasonvalley.org/s/.