A flock of children with backpacks talked and laughed while walking to the bus stop Wednesday morning, a sign some things were returning to normal in the Mesa neighborhood left underwater after Monday's historic downpour.
The thigh-high floodwaters that had stormed uninvited into more than 100 homes were finally gone, replaced with street-sweepers, utility trucks and school buses.
As homeowners and volunteers in the Emerald Acres acre began what promised to be a long cleanup process, moving sandbags and tossing waterlogged furniture into dumpsters, the city established a resource center nearby for additional help.
RELATED: Mesa still swamped after record rain
Fire Station 202, at 830 S. Stapley, will act as a command post of sorts for those affected by the flooding from Monday's historic downpour.
"We envision someone will come in and say, 'Hey, my house is soaked. I don't have the ability to clean it out,'" Mesa Mayor Alex Finter said at a press conference Wednesday. "We're going to get them 50 volunteers to go in and clean that house, pull up the carpet. Sanitation's all in place to haul everything away.
"Then, we'll try to put them in contact with local contractors, or with the Home Depot or Lowe's or whoever's willing to step up, to see what kind of material needs we can get met," he said. "And then we'll see what we can do to try to help them build."
Finter said Wednesday marked the start of the recovery phase for residents of the roughly 100 homes damaged in the floods, some more than others.
Mesa neighborhood dries out after flooding
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"We still have about 50 (homes) that we know of that are just now getting their power up that have the really severe water damage," he said. "Everything has to be taken out of those homes — dumpsters filled, drywall cut out. These homes don't have insurance. They're a blue-collar, working-class neighborhood so they're going to need assistance."
Some of the heaviest damage could be found along Allen and Doran streets, where piles of ruined carpet and other debris littered driveways, waiting to be taken to roll-away dumpsters dropped off by the city.
John and Brooke Gebhart, who have four children ages 7 to 18, had returned home from a reunion in Indiana on Monday to find the floodwater creeping up their front yard. The flood destroyed their flooring, while nine inches of water wreaked havoc in the garage.
"We were up until 1 a.m. (Wednesday morning) sweeping up grime and gunk on the floor," Brooke said.
The couple just painted the inside of the house with a semi-gloss over the old flat paint, which a home restoration contractor told them probably help save the drywall.
An "army of volunteers," largely from the faith-based community, already had been helping families and city officials since Monday. Finter said the city will need even more volunteers going forward.
Clean-up efforts are underway in Mesa's Emerald Acres area.
"If you want to serve...we'll get you into the neighborhoods," he said.
Mesa United Way also has teamed up with the city to provide flood relief and is accepting donations at mesaunitedway.org; 480-969-8601; and 137 E. University Drive in Mesa.
City crews had begun pumping water out of the massive Emerald Park retention basin late Monday night after water levels at a nearby Arizona Department of Transportation canal ebbed. Pumping some standing water out of the basin and into the canal freed up space in the basin, allowing crews to pump out water flooding the streets in the area from Harris Drive to Stapley Drive and from Southern Avenue to U.S. 60.
As of Tuesday morning, fire crews were using about a dozen industrial-sized pumps, assisted by huge vacuum trucks able to suck up from 1,500 to 2,000 gallons of water at a time, according to Mesa spokesman Steve Wright.
"By mid-afternoon, on the east side toward Harris, the water was pretty much gone out of the neighborhoods, but we still had issues along Allen and that west side along Stapley," Wright said. "We shifted our major resources over there once we had a handle on east side."
RELATED: News roundup: After the flood
On the west side, crews pumped water out of the neighborhood's "dry retention basins" and into its regular drainage system. Unlike the Emerald Park basin, which has pumps to push water out if needed, these dry basins simply allow water to seep into wells underneath. Crews then pumped water from the streets.
By about 3 a.m. Wednesday, officials largely stopped pumping, except for at the farthest dry retention basin, near Stapley.
"All the streets were clear," Wright said. "It's going to take a long time to get the water out of the Emerald basin, but we probably lowered that by 6 feet also."
Water lines could still be seen halfway up mailboxes and slippery mud still covered some sidewalks and driveways. But residents said they were relieved to be able to move again and thrilled by the return of electricity.
With the floodwater gone, it was back to class for Eduprize student Alexis Christopher, who had school pictures and an algebra test waiting for her. For her mother Jenny, much of the day will be spent cleaning up an increasingly-smelly basement, where storm water seeped in.
The Emerald Acres area arguably suffered the brunt of Monday's record-breaking storm, which dumped nearly five inches on the zone, just north of U.S. 60. While investigators are still trying to determine why the neighborhood was so hard-hit, it appears it may be a victim of its own geography.
Flooding in Mesa
The general slope of the city runs downward toward the neighborhood, meaning water naturally flows toward it. Just south of the city is the U.S. 60, protected by a large berm, giving the water no place to go. A flood control canal that runs along the freeway is designed to provide relief, as are several retention basins near the neighborhood.
But with Monday's storm, so much rain fell so fast, that it appears the canal and the retention basins were overwhelmed.
"It wasn't a 100-year storm. It was more like a 1,000-year storm because of how fast the water came and because of how much water came," Wright said.
Developments citywide, except for in Mesa's Downtown Redevelopment Area, have to provide storm-water retention infrastructure equipped to handle a two-hour-long 100-year storm — or about 2.7 inches of rain, according to Mesa engineering spokeswoman Rene Powell. The Downtown Redevelopment Area is designed with an overlay that allows infrastructure there to discharge more water, so its retention requirement is 1.8 inches of rain.
"You plan the best you can, but there's also a level of fiscal responsibility where you say, 'In your lifetime, in my lifetime, how often are we going to see 5 inches of rain in five hours in Mesa, Arizona?" Wright said. "You have to use your best judgment based on historical trends."
Finter said city officials were going to sit down with ADOT and ask that, in the event of another storm in the next few days, ADOT not pump water off U.S. 60.
"There's been a lot of criticism that a lot of the capacity for the basins were taken when they pumped the freeway clean at 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning (on Monday)," Finter said. "If we have another event through here, we would tell them, 'Don't turn on those pumps, retention basins are full. You may have to shut down the 60 and hold the water there. Don't put it back into the city side, because we don't have the capacity.'"
ADOT has declined to comment on the week's events, saying the source of Monday's flooding is under investigation.
The resource center will be open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Information: 480-644-2800 or mesaric@mesaaz.gov.
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