Posted on 07/16/2017 6:48:55 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Fourteen family members were near the Cold Springs swimming hole on Saturday afternoon when heavy rains caused flash floods, said Sgt. David Hornung with the Gila County Sheriff’s Department. Four family members were rescued Saturday afternoon, Hornung said.
At least two of the dead were children, according to Hornung.
Cold Springs is just north of Payson in Gila County, and about 90 miles north of Phoenix.
...
A search and rescue mission was underway for the missing family members. The Gila County Sheriff’s Office, Tonto Rim Search and Rescue, Arizona Department of Public Safety Ranger Helicopter, Whispering Pines Fire Department and U.S. Forest Service participated in the effort.
(Excerpt) Read more at ktla.com ...
Monsoon season there now. Flash floods can develop without warning and travel miles away from the storm.
It’s hard to conceive of monsoons in the desert, but you better believe it. Instant rampaging rivers.
They told me just the other day the Monsoons were delayed due to global warming.
Anywhoo any fool in a spot like this during the monsoons is a dead fool or a damn lucky wet one.
Verde? Have heard of arroyos but not verde river. I thought verde meant green,
In any desert, dry washes are places to be aware and not places to camp.
Mt tops are precarious places during the monsoon too.
Lightning strikes abound.
If you have ever been in Arizona and noticed the bridges over the dry washes and thought ‘why?’, now you know. There is a ‘stupid motorist law’ here that says ‘if you enter water (water flowing over a street or water flowing through a wash)and need to be rescued, you will pay for the rescue’.
Local Fox station is reporting 9 dead with two more missing.
This swimming hole is at the Waterwheel campgrounds. It is very close to our cabin. The last time we went there, we walked back from the campground.
It is the East Verde River which also goes through Beaver Valley Estates. The river is dammed upstream to protect Beaver Valley. This flood was apparently from water collected below the dam. The whole Waterwheel area is a narrow canyon. If the water level were to rise, then there are places where you would have trouble climbing out of harms way.
We’ll be up there Wednesday night.
*** “It’s hard to conceive of monsoons in the desert, but you better believe it. Instant rampaging rivers” ***
Witnessed one ... very little warning and then it is there full blast ... it is like a contained Tsunami, tough to egress from if you are in it’s path. I saw the first little stream appear then a wall like 8’ tall with a river behind it and it lasted for hours, I was ticked, I ran out of beer while watching it and replenishment was on the other side.
(I was camping up on a high bank because the peccary were working the low scrub and they can be a pain, just ask my tree hugging brother ;^), he spent a few hours bleeding up on a big cactus once (does that make him a cactus hugger?) while they destroyed his camp and circled underneath him snapping and snorting)
Oh to be young again!
There is a video on YouTube of one of these places, I don’t think it is this one but they are usually down in places where they are hard to get into and out of in deep canyons.
Oh how many a year get washed down the washes out here.
Few years back, here in GV, a couple dudes in a ford F150 4X4 decided to cross a running wash and ended up going end over end.
They both didnt make it and it actually took the rescue a couple hours to find one who was thrown clear of that truck. Hung up under a pile of brush.
I have seen boulders the size of a kitchen stove come rolling out into the roads down here from a running wash. Wouldnt believe it till you saw it yourself.
All a person has to do is sit there and watch the thing for about 20 minutes. or sometimes more, till it quits and then drive through.
Scratch my question about verde. Post #10 got it through my thick scull.
Flash floods in desert regions of the Southwest where I live are common in the Summer months. I’ve seen many of them. Barely made it through a flash flood in Death Valley, California some 40 years ago. During a thunderstorm, a normally dry gulch was flooding the very remote section of highway in front of us. The water was getting deeper by the second.
Young and foolish in our 20s, my friend and I plowed through the raging foot deep water in his ‘64 Ford 2WD truck. By the time we got to the other side, the flash flood, filled with rocks and debris, was now at least three feet deep and running even faster. We were very lucky.
Prayers up.
Monsoon season is not to be taken lightly.
Ping!
May God receive their souls.
Peccary. Had to look that up. Cool.
Last year, Pima County had one of their Board of Supervisors get washed away in a county car. If I recall, she got a pass.
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