Linda Sillitoe Salt Lake County, Centennial History The 1981–82 water year had broken all records; then September 1982 climaxed with ten times more moisture than normal. A sense of foreboding grew valley-wide, as autumn mud slides closed Big and Little Cottonwood canyons and creeks flooded, damaging three hundred homes, roads, and bridges. At September’s end, Governor Matheson declared a state …