Tendrils of water reached into the neighborhood one house, then one street, then one block at a time.
Everything vanished below its opaque brown surface. Sidewalks. Driveways. Lawns. Shrubs.
The people of Mesa's Emerald Acres neighborhood watched, hoping for the best. But they also reacted as people naturally do when facing a mutual disaster.
Many jumped into one of the pickups scattered along Allen Street, determined to fend off the rising water from their homes.
Some checked on frail neighbors, while others came from outside to help, such as the occupants of an inflatable raft who floated down "the Allen" handing out bottled water and snacks.
It was almost enough to make Judy Kingsley forget how she had to dry off her feet before hopping into bed Monday night, her two small dogs bouncing in beside her.
But not quite.
The people of Mesa's Emerald Acres neighborhood watched, hoping for the best. But they also reacted as people naturally do when facing a mutual disaster.
"This has been awful," said Kingsley, who lives on Allen, one of the hardest-hit spots in Monday's storm. "But it's been wonderful to see so many people help."
Power was out for hundreds of homes overnight, leaving only a full Harvest Moon to cast an eerie sheen across the flood waters. More than 300 homes remained without electricity Tuesday afternoon.
Residents awoke to the stalled cars left in the flooded streets and the knee-high water stubbornly lingering.
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The Emerald Acres area, roughly bounded by Stapley Drive and Harris, from Southern Avenue to U.S. 60 in south Mesa, is a diverse, middle-class neighborhood dating back to the 1970s. Many entrenched residents have lived there for three decades or more.
As a historic rainstorm drenched metro Phoenix early on Monday, it appeared the neighborhood would weather the storm just fine.
The water breached the sidewalk but held there. As showers began to lighten after 8 a.m., residents breathed a collective sigh of relief.
Then, everything changed.
Don Gomolski, a resident of 38 years, watched as water poured out of a deep retention basin and into the street in front of his house.
"It's slowly rising and I see an empty plastic bottle floating by," Gomolski said. "I'm looking at my car and see it's up to my rear tire. When I go back out 15 minutes later, it's at my front tire and I wonder where it's going to stop."
Flooding in Mesa
Water started seeping into his basement from beneath the foundation, but Gomolski worried more about his neighbors directly west, who seemed to be worse off.
Most people in the area don't appear to have flood insurance, he said. "I've yet to find someone who's signed up for it."
Although the neighborhood has seen floodwaters build up during heavy rains before, many residents were stunned by the extent of the damage this time around.
Anthony Desiata moved onto Allen Street only a week ago and came home around 7:30 Monday night to find his home completely flooded, the water level reaching halfway up his bathtub.
"My truck started to float, and it's a big truck," Desiata said.
Down the street, on the other side of a lake forming around Keller Elementary, E-Jay Christopher and his family of four were working to save the tropical fish in their 570-gallon basement tank.
With the power out, the Christophers had to find a generator to keep the tank water circulating. Otherwise, Christopher's 16-year-old pacu, an omnivorous South American freshwater fish related to piranha, might have met its demise. The fish was a Valentine's Day gift from his wife, Jenny.
Although the family was able to move enough dirt to avoid a total flood, the water appeared to cause damage to the foundation as the brick below the front window sank.
Were it not for the makeshift mud dike Christopher quickly built around the house Monday afternoon, the water likely would have poured into his basement through the window wells.
"We were inches away from disaster," he said.
Around the corner near Allen Street, Angel Jaime and Penny Tucker initially thought they'd dodged a bullet. The rain let up and the rising water stopped far short of their front door, good thing since Jaime had worked so hard on the new linoleum floors.
He'd done all the improvement projects himself as he worked to craft a house perfect for the couple's needs.
Cleanup underway after record rainfall
At some point Monday afternoon, between 2 and 3 p.m. the brackish water rose.
Quickly.
"We thought we were OK," Tucker said. "All of the sudden it went up and up and up. It wasn't stopping."
Some neighbors in the flooded area fared better. Water crept short of carports and garages, though front yards hid beneath a few inches of muddy water. Other homes were untouched, falling along the outer edges of the flood's reach.
But on Allen, the flood treated everyone equally. Sandbags prevented some damage, but water seeped into several garages in the least, and right through some homes at most.
The hastily arranged sandbags piled in front of Judy Kingsley's did little to impede the five inches of water she said flowed into her home Monday afternoon when, well, something happened.
"Everything was fine," she said Tuesday from her front gate, an inch of water still covering the walk between driveway and door. "I even noticed that a little after noon, the water on the fire hydrant across the street was a little lower. I thought we'd be OK."
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Sometime after 2 p.m., the water poured in, soaking Kingsley's carpets and baseboards but not her two dogs, who sought the higher ground of the couch. She did the only thing she could.
She watched.
"It was like a river, I'd never seen anything like it," she said. "There was nothing I could do about it but stand where I was."
Kingsley said she will repair the damage and get on with life. While some of her neighbors evacuated the night before, perhaps not to return until flood waters recede (which may take a week or more, Mesa officials said), Kingsley said she's staying put.
"I'm 75 and too stubborn to go anywhere," she said. "Besides, there's no place to go."
Monsoon rain floods Valley
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Efforts to help residents like Kingsley were in full swing Tuesday.
Throughout the morning, fire and city trucks roamed the flooded streets, drivers and passengers surveying the damage.
"Today, we start to transition somewhat from response into recovery, and that's going to require people," Mesa Councilman Scott Somers said. "It's answering, 'What do you do now, if you have flood damage to your property?' Telling people to make sure they contact their local insurance companies, that they document everything."
Fire crews went door-to-door in affected neighborhoods to ask residents what they needed. A temporary shelter at the Broadway Recreation Center remained open, though few residents took advantage of it.
Mayor Alex Finter throughout the day provided updates on the situation near the site of the flooding, as police officers protected the area. He requested county help with mosquito control.
Volunteers, many from churches, were providing support and attempting to clean up certain areas. An all-terrain cart carrying bottled water plowed through the neighborhood streams. Salt River Project provided free ice at nearby Keller Elementary School.
Late in the day, the city issued a warning cautioning residents not to trust anyone showing up offering to repair damage related to the storms, saying they could be scam artists.
The city has begun its own storm-damage assessments, which could take weeks to complete. Portions of the neighborhoods still underwater will have to dry out before officials can get a better look.
Such assessments could allow Mesa and Arizona Division of Emergency Management officials to build a case to request federal help. Finter has repeatedly said he will be working to lock down aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
"If a sufficient case is built, Gov. Brewer must first send a letter to the feds detailing that case, and from there, the feds will make their decision," said Andrew Wilder, a Governor's Office spokesman.
He said it was a "safe presumption" that there would be enough damage to warrant Brewer sending that letter.
"Mesa is high on everybody's list here," Wilder said. "We're monitoring that very, very closely."
Back at the flooded area, a handful of residents braved a neighborhood stroll, made treacherous when unseen curbs suddenly dropped off, water rising from knee to thigh in a second.
Unable to drive, Rob Cochran carried work clothes and other essentials as he waded toward higher ground, where a cousin waited to pick him up. Others sloshed in the opposite direction, eager to get back home to needy pets.
Early Tuesday morning, Arthur Lyman stood where Glade Avenue bends into Allen, knee-deep in water. He was the self-appointed watcher of the wakes, asking drivers high-clearance vehicles to slow down lest the resulting waves lap into homes.
Lyman said that on Monday afternoon, he was a passenger in a high-clearance vehicle that made18 round-trips to fetch sandbags from a Mesa fire station.
"A lot of people pitched in," Lyman said. "As soon as the water started rushing in, we knew it was going to be trouble."
After walking his wife and 3-year-old daughter to a friend's car outside the flood zone, Marcus Soudani spent part of Tuesday morning surveying the damage. He walked a quarter mile to Keller Elementary School, a usually pleasant walk turned into a slow, lengthy wade.
"Everything's been turned into a lake," he said after returning home, plopping himself into a patio chair behind sandbags. "It's hard to believe."
He knew it would get worse. He'd seen water bottles, soda cans and various bits of yard detritus float by. But will bacteria soon form? When will mosquitoes arrive?
Soudani will take it a day at a time, the only thing he can do.
He pointed to the pair of shoes on top of a junction box in front of his home. A black sneaker and a black and red wedge heel.
"Found those floating," he said. "I put them up there in case anyone's looking for them. You never know."
Four doors down, towels, sheets and blankets were flung over a fence, slightly dryer than they were an hour ago.
Because you hope for the best.
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