First, for the sake of transparency, I'd like to say my husband and I are not residents of Arizona. We do own property in Duncan, however. We have a mobile home park and rentals. So we were very much affected by the recent flood.Â
Our neighbors were very much affected by this flood, too. So we have questions about how this was allowed to happen — and it was allowed to happen.
It is my understanding the flood waters started coming down East Avenue about 4 a.m. Monday, and evacuations started about 4:30 a.m.Â
We were in town by 7 a.m. We did not see one piece of equipment working anywhere. Not one front-end loader, not one dump truck. They should have been in there working at the very least two days earlier to shore up those levees.
Everyone we spoke with had the same answer: "We don't know."
That's the city, county and state people we talked to. An ADOT official we spoke with said facetiously, "We need more meetings."
I know he was making light, but my daughter's home is on East Avenue. She has been evacuated, and there was a foot-and-a-half of water in her yard creeping up all the time.
Our renter next to her had water up to the bottom of his motor home. His dogs were standing in chest-deep water.
He and his wife had left for work just before the flood waters came down. Where were the warnings?
I'm not feeling very light about this.
During the flood of 1983, the Army Corps of Engineers were running end loaders and dump trucks 24/7. Where are they? Why can't state and county equipment try to help?
Greenlee County's Hazard Mitigation Plan published in 2021 says, "Duncan is highly likely to experience catastrophic levee failure."
Why wasn't anything done? Where is the Corps of Engineers? It's their baby; why aren't they taking care of it?
There were heroes. Friends loading up friends and animals and getting them to higher ground. Fairgrounds offering their pens and facilities. Same with the school. Volunteers trying to keep up with the sandbags. (What a back-breaking job that must be!) Freeport-McMorRan donating water, cleanup supplies, etc. Empire did the same, and I'm sure there were others.
The volunteers it took to get those supplies to the people who needed them — will they have to do the same next week, next month, 10 years from now?
Yes, they will, unless the Corps of Engineers comes into Duncan and starts making a plan today and starts implementing it right away.
What does it take to get them to save this little community? Evidently it takes more than a Greenlee County Hazard Mitigation report.
—Mickie Shay, Virden, N.M.
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