KGUN 9News

Actions

Monsoon rain and missing emus

Water and weirdness in wake of the storm
Posted at 5:37 PM, Jun 29, 2016
and last updated 2016-06-30 09:31:38-04
TUCSON (KGUN9-TV) - The monsoon rolled in late Tuesday night and left plenty of water behind.
     
Water was flowing in the Santa Cruz River as a result of the downpours.
     
While the Santa Cruz was well within its banks monsoon and our system of washes creates plenty of potential trouble for drivers.
 
Some people have a hard time believing flowing water can carry their cars away.
   
But just one gallon of water weighs more than eight pounds--- and a rushing wash will have that kind of force many times over.
 
Smart drivers will obey the barricades at high water crossings, obey common sense and turn away instead of taking their chances.
       
Drivers after Tuesday night’s storms mostly had nuisance leftovers to deal with.
       
A stretch of Contractors Way just west of Davis Monthan was closed for part of the morning.
       
By mid morning puddles were a reminder of the hassles businesses deal with when it rains.   As someone who's worked along Contractor's Way for eight years Robert Castano knows how to stay out of trouble.
 
KGUN9 reporter Craig Smith asked:  “What's it like when somebody comes down here who doesn't know the way this place gets?”
 
Castano says, “Oh, they'll go right through it.  They'll get stuck, sometimes.  You'll have to pull them out or somebody tries to pull them out but they have no idea.  It's a little deceiving.  You can't see how deep it is."
 
Both Pima County and the city of Tucson have lists of the frequent flooding spots.
        
Alamo Wash at Escalante is one of those trouble spots.  There was just a hint of the Alamo Wash's potential when we visited in early afternoon, but the wash is Aaron Reed's neighbor and not always a good one.
 
He says, “We have a constant worries that it's gonna flood, that it's gonna go over the wash and make its way to our yard and just worried about any possible damage it would do to the house, foundations, anything we have outside and possibly inside if it were actually able to make it in."
      
And monsoon can lead to some strange situations.
      
A woman far west, near San Joaquin and Bopp hopes you'll be on the look out for her emus.
       
A big blast from monsoon, knocked down her fence, and the big birds took off---at least as well as flightless birds like emus can take off.  Watch out for them and contact us at KGUN9 if you see them.