{gallery}07_30_09/canal{/gallery} Troy Teter of the Wyoming Highway Department talks to Tribune reporter Gib Mathers about the damage to the shoulder of U.S. 14-A caused by flooding from a break in the Sidon Canal. The flooding during the night forced closure of the road until temporary repairs were completed Tuesday afternoon. Tribune photo by Don Amend Canal closed for repairsIt is unlikely Wendy Walker, 19, of Lovell, will forget a two-foot wave of water that swept her off U.S. 14-A early Tuesday morning.

Motorists will recall the detour they were forced to take that day and area farmers will remember the closing of the canal for repairs.

Walker was eastbound, cruising about 65 mph southwest of Byron at around 2 a.m., when she hit the water that literally washed her off the road into a coulee created by water from the Sidon Canal, just north of the highway.

Once in the gully, water began streaming into and then over the car, Walker said.

“It was pretty scary,” Walker said.

Fortunately, she was not injured.

Two unidentified men driving west who were stuck in the mud, helped Walker evacuate her swamped 1994 Geo Prizm.

On Tuesday morning at around 9 a.m., it looked like the aftermath of a flash flood. On the north side of the highway was muddy standing water with islands of Russian olive. The water was just lapping the highway. On the ridge a tracked backhoe moved forward to initiate repairs to the canal.

Below, on the south side, where Walker's mud and water-logged car rested six feet lower than the highway was a 200 yard or so swath through what was once brush, trees and grass. Tuesday it was a sloping field littered with stones embedded in shiny, sticky mud.

Looking as though severed with a crooked saw was about 300 feet of undercut highway.

“We have damage to the shoulder of the highway, and erosion undermined about a foot of the road for several hundred feet,” said Wyoming Department of Transportation Maintenance Foreman Jim Thomas in a news release Tuesday.

Although the road was blocked to ensure drivers gave the area a wide berth, Cody Beers, department public involvement specialist said less than one-quarter of a mile was actually impacted by water.

The highway was reopened at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday.

Clint Trautman of G K Construction Company of Lovell, said the Sidon Canal will require 150 yards of fill — rocks and dirt.

The canal breach is roughly 100 yards in length. It will take three or four days to close it, said Sidon Canal board member Rodney Crosby Wednesday.

The canal, that runs over 30 miles and irrigates roughly 30,000 acres, was shut down at around 4 a.m. Tuesday, said Beers.

The bad news is that once the canal is back on line it will take four or five days to deliver water to the end of the canal in the Cowley area, Crosby said.

Heavy rain is the suspected culprit, but Trautman also said that deluge might aid the farmers waiting for irrigation water.

Rain poured in Byron on Monday. Unofficial local gauges measured 4-5 inches of precipitation flooding streets, Crosby said.

Meteorologist Roger Smith of the National Weather Service in Riverton, said atmospheric conditions in northwest Wyoming Monday suggested the possibility of 1-2 inches in the area that day.

The Big Horn County Sheriff's office was dispatched shortly after the incident, along with Big Horn County Emergency Management, according to Big Horn County Sheriff Ken Blackburn.

The sheriff's office and Emergency Management Coordinator John Hyde remained on the scene until Wyoming Department of Transportation personnel arrived.

Hyde made sure everyone was safe.

“He is doing a great job,” Blackburn said.

Beers said before the canal was closed, the road resembled a waterfall.

“Nobody expects to see water flowing over the road on your way home,” Blackburn said, thinking of Walker's mishap.

The highway department will complete full repairs on the highway this year by appropriating funds earmarked for other projects. At this point there is no cost estimate, Beers said.

“It will be expensive to fix,” he added.