Every time I post about rainwater harvesting I get people saying things like “yeah, but it never rains” or “it doesn’t rain enough here,” so I wanted to post up some pictures from earlier this week after we had a freak rain storm that dropped a little over a inch of rain. This is Santa Rosa Wash, it is just down the street from where I live, it flows from the south to the north so whenever Tucson get a lot of rain it floods. This kind of seems like a cruel joke because Tucson could probably use this water more than Phoenix. This flooding subsided within 24 hours of its start, but it is still lightly flowing.

I’ve seen pictures of downtown Maricopa underwater from what I think was a 100 year flood, but I can seem to find any for this post. If you have any of these pictures, send us links in the comments. According to FEMA maps our house is above the flood plain, but I imagine when Maricopa gets another 100 year flood it is going to do some damage nearby. I’m not sure I’d want to live on the banks of this wash when that happens.

It wouldn’t be a proper flooded wash if someone didn’t cross the road block and cross through it. It doesn’t take much water to get stuck, so be careful, that’s why Arizona has the stupid motorist law.

The “Stupid Motorist Law”, which corresponds to section 28-910 of the Arizona Revised Statutes, states that any motorist who drives around barricades to enter a flooded stretch of roadway may be charged for the cost of his/her rescue.

The need for the law came from the lack of storm sewers in the deserts of the Southwestern United States. Desert rains, usually associated with summer monsoons, and the flooding that comes with them tend to be short-lived. Many desert cities and towns don’t use culverts to channel minor washes (also known by the Spanish name arroyos) beneath the roadway. Only major washes and floodplains have bridges over them. Storm drains are spaced quite far apart when they are present at all. Consequently, during rain storms, storm runoff flows over the roadway. During hard, strong rain storms, the washes, underpasses, and areas around large storm drains can flow fast and deep enough to pick up an automobile and carry it downstream. During particularly strong floods, one might see a motorist stuck in the middle of a wash, sitting on the roof of a dead car submerged to the windows.

In such cases, if public emergency services (such as a fire department, or paramedics) are called to rescue the motorist and tow the vehicle out of danger, the cost of those services can be billed to the motorist.

[Wikipedia]

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