SOMERTON, Ariz. – Following Tuesday’s storm that struck the Desert Southwest many residents in Somerton, which was hit much harder than other areas, are trying to clean up the damage caused to their homes. The National Weather Service says that Tuesday’s storm is a once in 200 year event, Somerton saw double their annual rainfall in a 3 hour period. On Wednesday many areas were flooded, even cars were stuck and almost completely covered by water with clear signs of damage across the city.
On Thursday things seemed to have gotten better as many flooded areas were cleared up. Somerton city manager Bill Lee says they expect to have all flooded roads cleared by Thursday night. He says that it will take some time to learn exactly how much damage was caused and how much it would cost to repair. We spoke to a resident Euglia Montes, as her husband was cleaning out their homes gutters, she says her home was completely flooded, “The water coming into the house it was very bad the kitchen, living room bathroom it was like a lagoon”. She also says that it is probably going to cost alot of money to fix up her home, “We got laminate floors and almost half is damaged already”.
Every resident we spoke to says this was something like they’ve never seen before. On Thursday even though alot of the flooding was cleared up, as crews have been working overtime to drain flood areas, debris as well as mud and dirt could be seen scattered across city streets. Several yards had trees fallen over in some areas trees even fell onto residents homes. The city says it could take weeks to fully recover from this.