Wild weather exacts toll on North Valley
Marc Buckhout ~ Managing Editor ~ 1/27/2010

The weather front that moved into Arizona Wednesday, struck hardest Thursday and didn’t peter out until Saturday wreaked havoc on the North Valley.
From a tornado touching down in North Scottsdale, near Desert Ridge Mall, with winds that blew the tent at the Barrett Jackson car show onto the Loop 101, to tornado watches in Cave Creek, to torrential rains that dumped more than seven inches in the Anthem, New River, Desert Hills, Cave Creek and Carefree areas making numerous roads flood and become impassable it was a trying week in the Valley.
While normally dry New River was flowing at 17,000 cubic feet per second on Thursday, a rate comparable to the flow of the Colorado River, according to Arizona Game and Fish officials, the worst storm related damage took place in Black Canyon City.
When asked Friday morning what the last 24 hours had been like Black Canyon Fire Chief Thomas Birch didn’t mince words.
“To put it bluntly it has been hell,” he said. “We had gone on Wednesday and told people in low-lying areas by the river that we expected that it could flood, but it was more than I think anyone could have expected. I’ve talked to old timers that have been here since the 1970s and this is the worst they’ve ever seen.”
Trailer parks near Black Canyon Creek and Agua Fria River had to be evacuated early Thursday night and early Friday morning as the water level, which hits flood level at 16 feet rose to more than 30 feet.
“It’s normally dry, maybe it’s at 3 feet when it’s running, but it was at 13 feet by 11 a.m. yesterday (Thursday) and it was going up about a foot every half hour,” Birch said.
In the course of getting people to safety Birch said well more than 100 people from three trailer parks were evacuated, with approximately 100 staying the night at Cannon Elementary School. Others stayed at hotels or with friends.
And with the exception of a fire fighter who tangled with a cat that wasn’t interested in being rescued from a trailer where it lived as the companion of an elderly woman Birch said the rescue efforts, went off without any injuries.
The aftermath of the flooding left more than cat scratches.
Darrell Underwood was one of the evacuees. The Riverside RV Park resident has called Black Canyon City home for the past four years.
“I left for a motel in Anthem Thursday when I realized it was going to be pretty bad,” he said on Monday. “When I came back it was just amazing. Pretty much everybody here lost their homes.”
Underwood hugged his cat, Psycho, while shaking his head looking at what remains of his mud caked, water soaked, belongings in his trailer. He and most of his 75 neighbors have little left after the waters flooded their homes.
He points at a line across his television set, sitting on a stand some four feet off the ground.
“You can see how high the water got,” he said. “It’s unbelievable. I lost most everything. I’m not sure what I’m going to do.”
Birch said Underwood is far from alone in his predicament.
“I would say there are upwards of 150 to 200 homes that could be uninhabitable,” he said. “There are 50 that are definitely ruined and then the rest of them have moderate to serious damage.”
About two dozen households near Lisa Drive were still stranded on the other side of the river Sunday, after the only bridge that connected them to town was destroyed in the flood. An Army helicopter dropped off drinking water for the community Friday.
Red Cross personnel provided the initial support in the area running the shelter out of Cannon Elementary School.
The rains, which reached upwards of 9 inches during the course of the week, caused the closure of I-17 for a time at milepost 236, Table Mesa, due to severe mudslides.
Birch said there is much work to be done as the town attempts to recover.
“It’s all muck and mud everywhere,” he said. “It will take some time, but we’ll bounce back.

Weather Photos Jan. 2010

 

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