Flooding proves disastrous in Ambos Nogales.

Damage assessments on-going

By Manuel C. Coppola

The Monsoons geared up to full strength this weekend causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage to Ambos Nogales. One local storm watcher even captured a photograph of a funnel or tornado cloud from her Nogales, Ariz., home about one mile from the border.

Officials in Nogales, Ariz., declared a state of emergency and have petitioned the state for relief.

Near the close of business and in the wake of Saturday’s rains, shopkeepers along the first two blocks of Morley Avenue were barraged by runoff. The water gushed from across the line through the pedestrian port of entry where border walls acted as a dam.

According to Mexican media reports and local store owners, the border walls held back storm runoff that burst through the concrete and asphalt ceiling of the wash tunnel on Calle Elias, just 60 feet south of the pedestrian port of entry.

Up to five feet of water pooled on the Mexican side of the border where several vehicles that were parked in the area floated and converged at the base of a nearby hill. “It looked like a bomb fell,” said one observer.

At press time, it was still unclear how the water managed to break through into Morley Avenue, along the railroad tracks and to the rear portion of the Nogales-Rochlin Public Library which also took in water.

Officials believe the collapse of the wash ceiling was due to immense pressure after most of the wash tributaries flowed to capacity and into the waterway known as Arroyo Los Nogales which is the Mexican extension of the Nogales Wash.

Business owners and employees on both sides of the border worked throughout much of the night and again on Sunday pumping and sweeping water out of their shops. Many have basement warehouses that also took in water.

“This kind of flooding had not occurred since 1924 when my grandfather first got here,” said Paul Bracker, a member of a pioneer Nogales merchant family.

At the request of officials from Ambos Nogales, the pedestrian port will remain closed “until the damage to the area can be assessed and repaired,” said CBP spokesman Chief Brian Levin.

He added that CPB officers rescued three individuals from the flood channel underneath the Dennis DeConcini Port of Entry just west of Morley Avenue.

On Saturday at about 5:45 p.m., officers working at DeConcini heard cries for help coming from the flood control tunnels underneath the primary vehicle-inspection area, Levin said. “When the officers looked into the metal grates covering the channel, they discovered a 27-year-old Mexican man pinned against the wall by floodwaters. The officers managed to remove several of the grates and lower a rope into the channel, helping the man climb out of the floodwaters.”

A second rescue happened at about 9:30 p.m. when CBP officers heard more cries for help coming from the same flood channels, Levin said. Officers discovered two more people, a 15-year-old boy and a 17-year-old boy, also trapped by floodwaters. With the assistance of the officers, the boys, both from Mexico, were able to reach a ladder and climb out of the tunnels.

Later at about 2 a.m. on Sunday, CBP officials closed the SENTRI Lane at DeConcini after a sinkhole developed just 30 feet away from the inspection station.

“The hole was discovered by accident as a commercial bus was approaching the port and began to sink into the ground,” Levin said. “Passengers exited the bus and continued on foot while the bus driver backed the bus out of the hole” which is between 10 and 15 feet wide.

But an SUV that attempted to drive down the same lane a short time later became stuck in the hole, he said.

After water levels declined in the Nogales Wash on Sunday, city officials determined that six concrete floor panels in the waterway straddling Morley Avenue near the Holbrook Overpass had lifted, exposing the sand bed. About 18 inches below is the International Outflow Interceptor (IOI), the pipe that carries between 12 and 14 million gallons of sewage daily from Nogales, Sonora to the Nogales International Wastewater Treatment Plant in Rio Rico.

Just yards away near the Arizona Bol bowling alley is where concrete slabs lifted last monsoon season, spurring an emergency declaration by the late Mayor Ignacio J. Barraza in which city, county, state and federal government personnel mobilized to divert the water and patch the concrete in order to protect the IOI. A more permanent repair of the area was completed just days ago at a cost of more than $400,000.

Preliminary reports from Ambos Nogales officials were that, while the IOI was exposed along the Nogales, Sonora portion of the wash, it was not in danger of breaking.

Nogales Mayor Octavio Garcia Von-Borstel and City Manager Jaime Fontes were missing in action on Saturday evening after the mayhem. But Public Works Director Flavio Gonzalez declared a state of emergency at 8:39 p.m.

At about 9 p.m., Gonzalez and Fire Marshall Jesus Manuel Gomez met with Nogales, Sonora officials and assessed the damage. On Sunday morning, Fontes attended a meeting with officials of the U.S. Section of the International Boundary and Water Commission, Santa Cruz County, city police, fire, engineering, sewage pre-treatment departments, UniSource Energy Services and the Union Pacific Railroad.

Meantime, workers kept busy filling sandbags that will be used to help Morely Avenue merchants protect their stores in the event of further flooding. Also, Gonzalez said that workers were assessing how to best protect the IOI, at the Nogales Wash were the sections of concrete lifted on both sides of the waterway, and a side wall has begun to collapse.

Mary Ann Jackson a Nogales “Skywarn Watcher” for the National Weather Service said she was “looking southwest (towards the border) from our backyard” about a mile from the border when she spotted the funnel cloud on Saturday.

“It's hard to tell if (the funnel) was in Mexico or on this side. It seemed close, like it was on our side.”

In a letter to Jackson Greg Mollere of the NWS in Tucson, said, “Although it is nearly impossible to tell from the photos if it touched the ground, the pictures were impressive. We also received a call from another new spotter that was also at (a local) training session in June that saw the same funnel cloud. From information obtained from both of you, we were informed that the funnel cloud remained in Mexico from the best that could be determined. I also called both yourself and the other spotter a few minutes after receiving the photos, and was informed that the funnel cloud was either no longer visible or had moved out of sight or dissipated.

“Based on this information, we did NOT issue either a severe thunderstorm warning or a tornado warning for Santa Cruz County. We did NOT receive any further reports indicating that damage had occurred as a result of a tornado. However, if you were to have conveyed to us that this feature had indeed moved into the county, or was about

to enter the county, we would have taken immediate action."