Rain slams Scottsdale, Phoenix area
Storm caused damage in New River
Associated Press and staff reports

SCOTTSDALE – Heavy but isolated rains on Aug. 24 caused street flooding in parts of the Phoenix metro area and filled a wash with a rushing torrent of water that trapped two motorists.

Power outages were reported in Scottsdale, central Phoenix, and from Carefree Highway to Rockaway Hills Drive and 31st to 51st avenues in the Desert Foothills, according Rufus Coleman, spokesman for APS.

In New River, resident Jacque Curé said she was trapped in her Coyote Pass Road residence because rain washed out the road in front of her house.

“When it started raining, all the dirt from the road gets dumped into my driveway because I live below the road,” Curé said.

Curé lives on the side of a mountain and as the rainwater drains downward, it caused the dirt road near her house to collapse, she said. The mud from the washed out road slid down into her yard and partially buried her truck.

“My driveway is still buried in mud, and there’s about a foot of mud up against my fence,” Curé said. 

She said the rains caused two to three feet of water and dirt to accumulate near her house.

Landscaping crews struggled to clear the dirt away from her house and the road was cleared a couple of hours later, she said.

In the East Valley, firefighters waded into the Indian Bend Wash on Thursday to help two people out of two cars and walk them to dry land. The rescuers huddled around the motorists as they walked through water that came to about their knees.

The Scottsdale portion of the wash runs for eight miles and was built in the 1970s as a flood‑control measure, said city spokesman Mike Phillips.

It’s normally dry and it contains parks, golf courses and lake, but it runs with water during heavy storms. At those times it can look like a raging river.

“Today it’s functioning as it was intended to do, and that is carry a heck of a lot of water out of the mountains,” said Phillips.

He said the water was running at about three feet high but that it can run deeper. Some roads that cross the wash also become flooded during heavy rains; others cross over it on bridges.

Elsewhere that day, a woman driving through a flooded Phoenix intersection became trapped momentarily when the rushing water began to slowly move her car, but firefighters rescued her without incident, said Mike Sandulak, a division chief with the Phoenix Fire Department.

Several other cars were also stranded in the intersection but no one else needed to be rescued, Sandulak said.

Sandulak said that usually people needing rescues in such situations have driven past barricades, but in this case the woman hadn’t disregarded any such warning signs.                               

National Weather Service meteorologist Doug Green said between 1 1/2 inches and two inches of rain fell Thursday in some isolated spots around the Phoenix metropolitan area. “As far as anything catastrophic, we’ve heard nothing,” Green said.

Reporter Kathleen Stinson contributed to this article.