Torrential rains cause over $1 million worth of damage in Nevada county

[September 12, 2014]  (Reuters) - Torrential rains that drenched much of the U.S. Southwest and killed two women earlier this week caused more than $1 million worth of damage to roadways in a Nevada county, officials said on Thursday.

Nearly 140 homes in Clark County suffered damage following Monday's rains, and preliminary estimates from the county's public works department put the cost of cleaning and repairing area roadways at around $1.1 million, county spokeswoman Stacey Welling said in a statement.

Over half of the dirt roads in Sandy Valley, some 50 miles (80.5 kilometers) southwest of Las Vegas, were hard hit and would require $427,000 worth of service alone, Welling said.

The state's Division of Emergency Services is still working to provide a complete tally of the storm's damage.

The rains were the worst on record in the cities of Phoenix and Tuscon in Arizona where two women were killed on Monday, authorities said. They also prompted flash-flood warnings for areas of Arizona, California, Nevada and Utah.

Trooper Chelsea Webster of the Nevada Highway Patrol said emergency workers plucked at least 15 stranded motorists from their cars and police responded to nearly 70 accidents in the Las Vegas area following the storm.

The Clark County Department of Public Works expects recovery efforts to take 30 days to complete, Welling said.

(Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Susan Fenton)

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