“What? Flooding in Phoenix?”

 

By

 

Gerry Niskern

 

 

A map of possible flooding in the Valley of the Sun was published in the Arizona Republic and shown on local television a few weeks ago. It was suggested that this was a possibility if one of the dams should break.

As hard as it is for residents now to fathom, Phoenix has had more than its share of floods.  The valley has always had years of hard drought and then years of unbelievable rains. The thunderstorms that sometimes come tearing through the valley create havoc, but most of the time these torrential rains just managed to give everyone’s grass a good soaking. I know it’s hard to believe it, but sometimes we actually do get too much precipitation here in Phoenix.

Tremendous damage was caused by a rainy spell in February, 1890.  The Salt River, the Gila, the Santa Cruz and even the Colorado burst their banks and spread out over farms and homes along their courses. The Salt rose nearly seventeen feet above normal and washed out the Tempe railroad bridge and many miles of Southern pacific track between Tempe and Maricopa, and between Maricopa and Yuma.

Most of the homes in the lower area in Phoenix were under water. Adobe houses melted like candy. People were mired and stranded all over the territory. Cattle and other livestock were caught and swept away and ranchers and farmers had much of their tillable land gouged out and carried off.

The territory soon recovered from this blow. Bridges, ditches, railroad grades, and homes were rebuilt. No weather bureau records were kept at that time, so the amount of the three day rain was not exactly known.

Arizona’s wet and dry seasons have always been erratic, but seldom has one extremely wet year been followed by another. But that’s exactly what happened.

Going back in history, 1891 was actually the year known as the year of the great flood.

The life and well being of Phoenix depended on a plentiful supply of water from the Salt River.

Water from the river was basic to the development of the Valley of the Sun. Although sometimes the rain was inadequate, but mostly sufficient, it occasionally and unfortunately, sometimes it became torrential.

On February 18, l891, rapid snow melt in the mountains and several days of heavy rain produced a terrible flood in Phoenix. Water reached parts of Washington Street by the end of the day. More than sixty families had their swept away. Mostly adobe, they crumbled from the force of the rampaging water. Phoenix rescue workers plucked individuals from treetops and carried them to higher ground.

Fortunately, back in 1870, an early resident and the first mayor of Phoenix, John T. Alsap, had suggested a safe site for the permanent townsite of Phoenix. Located on high ground, more than a mile north of the Salt River, the site, bounded within the rectangle of Van buren on the north, Harrison on the south, and Seventh Street and Seventh Avenue was approved.

The Salt River spread out two or three miles wide below Phoenix.The rise of the Salt River surpassed that of 1890 by a foot or more, at point reaching 18 feet above normal. The Tempe railroad bridge and miles of track again went out. Telephone and telegraph lines were out leaving Phoenix without outside communication.

It melted down a lot of newly constructed adobe homes. Livestock was swept away and crops were torn out again. Again entire families sat sodden and wet in trees waiting to be rescued.

The floodwaters finally began to recede seven days later, on February 24^th. It left behind a quagmire of mud and debris. This injected new energy into the local business community to support the need for a controlled water supply to overcome periodic floods and droughts.

Unfortunately, after the flood, few real estate developers wanted to create residential areas in the southern part of the city. Most wanted to live north of Washington on higher ground and away from potential flood damage. Poorer neighborhoods grew up in south Phoenix, along with railroads, factories, warehouses and stockyards.

In more recent times during my childhood in the early l940’s, in one of those summers when we thought we were forever doomed to dust storms, but no wet relief, the rain finally came. We kids celebrated as we always did. We put on our bathing suits and ran joyfully through it. Hey, there were very few private pools in those days and not many public either. We’d take the water any way we could get it!

But the rains didn’t stop. The parched ground couldn’t hold it. The earthen Cave Creek Dam finally gave way and a wall of water hit Phoenix. The raised railroad tracks along Nineteenth Avenue dammed the water. That caused the entire residential area of  stately old homes around the State Capitol Building to endure heavy flooding.

We kids, in the blissful ignorance of childhood, enjoyed riding our bikes through the knee high water flowing curb to curb in the streets. West Jefferson street with it’s high curbs was especially deep. Our dads would follow along in the wake behind the  Estes buses in order to make it to work.

Most of the businesses, including the capitol building, were sandbagged. The capitol basement still flooded.

Since this was during WWII, there were always many army vehicles in the city. We kids were treated to our first look at an U. S. Army amphibious vehicle.  The Seventeenth Avenue underpass, about three blocks south of Washington, was flooded. Cars could not get through. Inconvenient detours around were time consuming, especially during gas rationing. One afternoon, we kids watch in awe as a group of soldier’s came down the street and drove right through the deep water and on under the bridge!

Even with the dams constructed along the Salt, there continued to be occasional floods in Phoenix. I remember listening as a neighbor told my parents about a flood in l938. “Back in thirty-eight the river really overflowed it ‘s banks. The Central Avenue Bridge was holding the water and debris back. Even though it was located on higher ground, all of central Phoenix was in danger of being flooded. Everyone went down to watch because the authorities were going to dynamite the bridge. Just as they were ready to light the fuse, the water started to subside.”

One other summer, in the l970’s, we lived just north of Northern off fifteenth Avenue. The rains had again been unrelenting. The ground was saturated and the canals couldn’t handle all the runoff and were starting to overflow. One Saturday morning we were awakened as police cars drove through the neighborhood. They were shouting on loud speakers, “Attention, prepare to evacuate.” It was kind of scary; what to take and where to go?

Fortunately, again the rain stopped and the canal waters started to subside.

Could it happen again in our valley, who knows?