MARANA, Ariz. (KGUN) — A monsoon storm last year turned Marana into what the town’s Street Superintendent described as a ‘tree-pocalypse’ – town and fire officials are now preparing for whatever this year’s monsoon may bring.
“It’s all kind of up to Mother Nature, we gotta learn how to roll with the punches, so to say, learn with the rain,” said Marana's Street Superintendent, Daniel Silva.
Learning with the rain is also what Northwest Fire District is doing. A swift water rescue certification requirement was added to NWFD’s last academy.
“We had a pool day where we learned how to deploy a raft, use our throw ropes, things like that – and then also a day where we went up to Phoenix to the Salt River and practiced in real swift water conditions," explained Probationary Firefighter, Melissa Grider, who graduated from the academy this past March.
This story is part of our KGUN 9 original: Monsoon Watch 2025. Watch the full program:
Monsoon can be a busy time for fire departments in the area, especially with swift water rescues.
“It usually becomes more than just one rescue, there are multiple vehicles that get involved, multiple patients that get involved,” Grider said.
Last monsoon, NWFD responded to seven swift water rescues, four of them on July 14.
In their jurisdiction, they responded to rescues near Galaxy and Thornydale, Orange Grove and I-10, and Curtis and La Cholla.
“If the road is closed, do your due diligence. You may have the 4x4, you may have a high lifted truck or you may think you can get in and through with a car, because you’ve been in this situation before, maybe possibly in other states – here’s a totally different beast,” Silva said.
He and Grider shared the same message: even if you think you know a road, you can never be certain.
“The water, if it’s super strong, it can actually cut out the asphalt from under you and it will become two, three, four, possibly six feet deep,” Grider said.
“As far as typical road sections that do get washed out a lot, one’s under construction, which is Twin Peaks. That used to be huge over Rattlesnake Pass, that road would flood over, topple really bad almost every year,” Silva said. “The other section is obviously Sandario right there by the airport and Triple L Feed Store in between Twin Peaks and Avra Valley on Sandario – there’s a low water crossing there.”
He also said improvements have been made on Tangerine Road to help with flooding.
“There are a lot more culvert systems that actually run underneath the road that cause the water, instead of flooding on top of the road, actually goes underneath the road now, he explained. “So there are a lot more drainage structures in place.”
He went on to explain that you never know exactly what monsoon will bring.
“Now if a freak accident happens or a freak incident happens, then we’re in a whole different game – and that happened in 2018,” he said.
During a storm that year, the Union Pacific train was derailed in Marana. There were no injuries.
“I think we handled the situation really well – and that’s why I said, now that we know what happened, we’re ready now,” Silva said.
To prepare for whatever monsoon may bring this year, Silva said staff are on call, two stations are set up with everything needed to quickly respond to roads needing to be cleared, signs are posted at low water crossings and a supervisor position was recently added for storm water maintenance.
Self-filling sandbag locations:
10050 N. Coachline Blvd.
4228 W. Tangerine Rd.
12280 N. Heritage Park Dr.
* People are asked to limit to 20 sandbags
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Madison Thomas joined KGUN 9 in July of 2023 as a multimedia journalist. She graduated from Arizona State University in May of 2023 with a degree in journalism and mass communication. She has lived in Arizona her entire life and grew up in Douglas. Madison is thrilled to share the stories from the community she grew up in. Share your story ideas and important issues with Madison by emailing madison.thomas@kgun9.com or by connecting on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook.
