Woke up to hard rain early this morning. When I opened the front today just a little while ago water almost poured in through my front door. :eek: Water had filled the porch area and spilled over onto the sidewalk, which is now about an inch underwater. And it’s still raining!
Here’s a photo of one of hour highways from this morning. I’ve been living here for over twenty years and never seen anything like this.
Good luck to the rest of you in Phoenix!
Loving every minute of it. Coffee and rain, mmmmmm.
This does happen every few decades AClockworkMelon, I remember boating down 19th Avenue as a teenager.
Mesa isn’t so bad. Only normal heavy rain effects. Streets are open. Water in the curbs. All the retention basins are full, though! I’d love to see Indian Bend wash - bet it’s up to the overpasses.
Quite the something on I10 at 43rd, eh? I got blocked on the (3)60 back in the 80s by similar flooding - that’s been the last time I’ve seen it this heavy.
Send it this way!
Las Vegas awaits any water falling from the sky that nearby communities are not using; thanks in advance.
Seems like a rather poor location for a highway.
It was raining a load in Tucson, too. No bad effects. The usual cautions against driving through washes. Now the sun’s out and things are starting to dry out.
Some guys in Mesa got their Jet Skis out to check those full of water basins. 
(Eight video on the right, scroll down on the videos strips in the news cast window)
Although there are reports of people evacuated from some homes in Mesa and other locations around the Phoenix metro area.
I have been here since 2001 and this is the first time my workplace had to close due to rain, in Arizona…
Our retention basin overflowed and sent a 2 foot deep river running down my street. I spent the afternoon shoveling clay birms and sandbagging to stop the water from pouring into my neighbors’ basements. Fortunately my home is few inches higher than theirs. The fire department says they’re planning on cutting power and water tonight and might evacuate us. Rumor has it there will be more rain tonight and who knows how that will go.
So yeah, it WAS that bad in mesa.
I thought there was an enormous drought out West? Not in Arizona? In a drought situation one would think everyone would welcome heavy rains.
Huh, it seems the Jet Ski video is the seventh one now in the Arizona Central news.
And not they report that it was about 100 homes in mesa that were evacuated.
There is a drought. But the problem with rains like this is that it comes down too hard and fast to soak into the ground. Instead, it runs off causing erosion and flooding and other damage, and it doesn’t soak into the aquifers.
It’s sort of like wanting a drink from a water fountain and getting a firehose in the face instead.
Let me know the next time you’re chilly, I’ll set fire to your house.
what Morgyn said, and indeed, it has been very dry, here is a bit from the last report from August from the University of Arizona:
http://www.climas.arizona.edu/swco/aug-2014/southwest-climate-outlook-august-2014
As we are a desert we had an advantage as over here there are a lot of projects going on to save water and more infrastructure to deal with dry conditions. IIUC the state is also noticeable on ignoring many climate change deniers by not stopping ongoing projects to deal with the issue today and in the future. There will be more underground reservoirs that are or will keep a lot of water from events like the one we passed through.
Eventually we will need to discourage the wide use of pools and lawns though, getting rid of mine has saved me a lot on the water bill.
I have to say also that I’m glad that I investigated well in my home search of a few years ago if my home was going to be in an area that could be flooded in an extreme event, (climate change is an issue of averages, extreme events like the one we passed will still happen and this one came from the remnants of hurricane Norbert) besides finding a great deal on my home, that was the best move I have ever made.
Is that the one they built that follows a normally dry riverbed?
That’s not the issue.
The problem is the overpasses - the freeway dips below grade to allow for the overpasses, and all that water overwhelms the drains, which inevitably get clogged with debris.
Here is a photo I took this morning of a normally dry “wash” that’s near my house. This runs through a golf course, like many other washes (arroyo) do out here.
The houses in Arizona have basements ?? I thought that was only in the Midwest…
Basements are uncommon out here, but they exist.
We have a split-level house that has the lower level around 4’ below grade.
It seems that it would have been smarter to raise the overpasses.
