Mesa neighborhood remains submerged under floodwaters

MESA, Ariz. — A Mesa neighborhood remained submerged in floodwaters
Tuesday after a record-setting storm walloped the region and forced some
residents to fortify homes with sandbags and wade through knee-high water to get
in and out of the swamped area.

Cacti were half-submerged, and only the tops of fire hydrants were visible
in the standing water that covered streets and sidewalks in the neighborhood.

“This is an awful situation for these folks,” Mesa Mayor Alex Finter told KTAR News’ Mac & Gaydos on Tuesday.

A father pulled his daughter and dog in a baby pool. Owners of pickup trucks
capable of navigating the water ferried residents to and from grocery stories.
Residents cheered when a fire truck arrived to help pump out the water.

“We’ve never seen this,” said resident Greg Montierth. “Arizona deals with
sand and cactus and heat. We’re not set up for it.”

Mesa recorded 4.41 inches of rain on Monday — a single-day record — as the
remnants of Hurricane Norbert rolled through Arizona and caused flash flooding
across the state. Two people died before the storm moved into Nevada and Utah
and caused considerable damage.

Finter walked back comments he made early Tuesday comparing the storm to a mini Hurricane Katrina, but said his city is still devastated.

“I apologize if people took offense at that, but for these folks, this is the worst disaster that’s hit them in their lives,” he said.

Finter said he is working with federal and state officials to get some assistance.

Adding to the misery in the neighborhood near U.S. 60 is the fact that
residents do not have flood insurance because it is not in a flood zone.

“It’s not something you’re offered. When you buy a house, you sign your
paperwork for the mortgage and when they say insurance, they look at flood
insurance, you’re not in a flood zone, you don’t buy flood insurance,” said
Montierth. “Why spend money on something that’s never supposed to happen?”

Mesa warned residents to be wary of possible scammers in the area. The city said residents should ask for written estimates, make sure they are hiring registered contractors and don’t deal with people asking for payment upfront.

More than 100 people in the neighborhood near U.S. 60 and Stapley Drive were encouraged to leave the area, where a water retention basin overflowed.

Jenny Christopher of Mesa had an emergency generator that she had borrowed from her father-in-law. That allowed her family to remain in their basement home, despite a recommendation from police to evacuate.

“The water just happened so fast. It was on the street and then on our lawn. Each car that was passing by was pushing it another five-to-six feet further.”

Transformers remained submerged Tuesday under 10-20 feet of water so there is no electricity in the neighborhood, though crews hoped to have the water drained and power restored by Tuesday evening. Salt River Project distributed ice to affected residents.

Christopher’s family got a reverse 911 around 8:30 p.m., informing them that their power would be shut off at 10:30 p.m.

With two children, puppies and a large fish tank, she and her husband were reluctant to pack up and go.

“We didn’t know how long the generator would last — it runs on gas,” Christopher said.

While the few Mesa neighborhoods worked to get rid of the water, the rest of the Phoenix metro area was in cleanup mode.

Rainwater flooded homes, businesses, streets and freeways over seven hours, much of it in the first three hours. That was too much rain in too little time. Joe Munoz with the Maricopa County Flood Control District said city planners will be looking at freeway and road pumps to try to minimize future flooding.

“That’s just a massive amount of water; like I tell people, there is good rain and bad rain,” Munoz said. “Good rain for us is if we get 7.2 inches of rain in the course of a year, but when you get five inches of rain in an hour and a half to three hours, we got some major issues here.”

The structures, levees and basins carried the water like they’re supposed to, he said.

“City planners will probably rethink the value and say, ‘OK, if we receive 5.6 (inches of) rainfall amounts in this period of time, what kind of pumps do we need to pump that kind of water out so it just doesn’t become a giant lake again?” Munoz said.

Despite the water management system behaving properly, numerous roads remained closed in both Maricopa and Pinal counties on Tuesday. Several began reopening throughout the day.

KTAR’s Corbin Carson, Jim Cross and Cooper Rummell and the Associated Press contributed to this report.