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SEPTEMBER 2021
www.GlobeMiamiTimes.com
Jane and Tom Hale have set up a travel trailer to live in until they decide what to do. They have lived on this land for over 32 years. Photo by LCGross
Debris from the burn scar and the flooding shows the enormity of the flood waters. Photo by Ellie Petty
Floodwaters at the Hale Ranch Our two stories on flooding take place on opposite ends of the Pinals, but both were drastically impacted by first the fire in June and now the flooding which began in July and continued to wreak havoc throughout the month of August. The Ptak’s ranch in El Capitan is located off Highway 77 on your way to Tucson. The Hale homestead is located off Highway 60 mid-way between Miami and Superior. BY LINDA GROSS
J The mangled remains of Hedges truck was pulled from the creek where it had rolled down by McSpaddens ranch. Photo by Ellie Petty
ane and Tom Hale have lived on their property in the Pinals for over 32 years, in a home built by the McKusicks – whose craftsmanship in home building, dating back to the Great Depression, was legendary in the area. It’s a good thing. A lesser house might not have survived. The flood waters, which hit the Hales’ house on July 29, were part of the third major flooding event since the monsoons brought the first rain to the area on July 3. A rainy season like this would have been welcomed with openarms after 14 months of record drought, had it not come on the heels of the massive Telegraph Fire. The burn scar left a hard crust where once there was ground cover, and with every rain the runoff was massive and mixed with burned debris and mud.
Furniture from the home was soaked and had to be taken to the dump. Photo by Trena Grantham.
The Pinals, which typically see 2 inches of rain per year, have had over 14 inches just in July and August. The Hales had prepared for the flooding by deepening the creekbed channel, creating higher berms, and lining the bend with 4,000-pound jersey barriers – the kind used in road construction. The first several flood events of the monsoon season, including the one of which overtopped the banks and flooded Six Shooter Canyon, were contained at the Hale ranch with the barriers they had erected after the fire. But the microburst that hung over the mountains to the west of them and dropped over 2 inches of rain in less than an hour was too much for any man-made barriers. The mix of flood waters and burn debris quickly overtopped the banks of the creek bed, destroyed the new earthen berm, and blew through the jersey barriers, lifting them up effortlessly and rolling them downriver. It took out the couple’s large gazebo on the back patio and their white picket fence before bursting through the windows and doors of the porch and through the house. Jane had set the table for lunch that day and had steaks on the counter. Friends Dawn and John Hedges had come to help them move some hay. Even though the sky was clear at the ranch, Jane moved her car and truck to higher ground when she saw it raining to the west. When she went back to get the couple’s 4x4 she saw the wall of water and stopped. “I was probably thirty seconds from being in that water,” she says. “John (Hedges) didn’t get there fast enough to move his truck, and it rolled up like a tin can behind McSpadden’s.” Water, mixed with mud and debris – including massive tree trunks the size of a man’s torso – crashed through the back of her home and flooded every room in the house and for nearly an hour, Jane stood on her front porch, barely above the raging waters, and filmed it all. Inside, her husband, Tommie, along with Dawn and John Hedges, worked to keep the couple’s small dogs safely on top of the now-floating furniture in the living room. The couple would discover one of the older small dogs had drowned in the back room where the flood first burst through the windows and doors of the home. “She was old and hard of hearing, and probably didn’t even know it was coming,” says Jane. Three of her large dogs were in the garage when it collapsed. Two of the dogs made it out of the floodwaters. One has still not been found. Jane’s video, which was picked up by news stations in the Valley, shows a wide expanse of fast-running water and debris spanning nearly 100 feet. She estimates it was 20 feet deep in places. Later photos show debris piled at least that high in places.
FLOOD, Continued on page 13
