Residents packed a town hall meeting in Globe to hear state and county officials report on flood recovery, voice frustration over damaged infrastructure, and seek answers about how to prevent future disasters.
Residents from Globe, Miami, and surrounding areas gathered on October 2 in a crowded auditorium at High Desert Middle School for a town hall meeting addressing recovery from the devastating September 26 flood. The event, coordinated by the Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management (DFFM), featured a panel of state and local emergency officials.
Tiffany de Villa, Public Affairs Officer for the DFFM, as well as a public information officer supporting the incident management team, introduced the panel of officials, including:
Division Chief Bob Arthur, Operations Section Chief with the Type 3 Incident Management Team, gave a presentation describing the response on the weekend of the flood.
The storm struck Friday evening around 7 p.m., triggering a wave of 911 calls reporting flooding near Connie’s Bridge and downtown Globe. Around 9:30 p.m., Tri-City contacted Arthur for assistance. Arthur and one of his battalion chiefs, who lives in the area, responded immediately.
That night’s operations were focused entirely on search and rescue. A DPS Ranger 1 helicopter equipped with night-vision capability searched the flooded drainages, while emergency responders staged in front of the Globe Fire Department, and crews were deployed as reports came in of stranded or trapped residents.
By Friday evening, discussions were under way about bringing in a Type 3 incident management team. Arthur contacted Incident Commander John Truett, who arrived that night to help initiate planning. The team was formally ordered on Saturday morning, and by noon, most members had arrived in Globe. The team assumed command of the incident at 6 p.m. Saturday.
Within 24 to 36 hours, operations transitioned from rescue to recovery. On Saturday, search-and-rescue teams, some of which included trained search dogs, began working from the canyon headwaters down through every drainage in Globe. On Sunday morning, the searches continued through downtown drainages with the aid of dogs and ground teams.
The incident was organized into three operational branches. The fire branch deployed three 20-person fire crews equipped with chainsaws to clear drainages and access areas unreachable by search teams. Crews cut and removed woody debris to prevent future blockages at bridges and culverts during subsequent storms.
The law enforcement branch coordinated local police, DPS officers, Arizona Rangers, Game and Fish officers, and all search-and-rescue units with dogs.
The heavy equipment branch utilized city and county backhoes, loaders, and small excavators provided by local contractors, along with two heavy-duty wreckers supplied by Action Towing. This branch followed behind the other two, removing vehicles, large debris, and other hazards uncovered during the searches.
Arthur showed a map of the area where blue lines represented drainages searched by personnel, and orange lines marked areas covered jointly by ground teams and search dogs. He said all drainages throughout the Globe-Miami community were covered by the DPS helicopter, and multiple agency drones flew daytime missions for several days.
More than 300 propane tanks were recovered from creeks and washes across the area. Teams removed the tanks and stacked them roadside for pickup by Matlock Gas and other propane distributors.
By Monday, operations extended to the Wheatfields area, where crews continued to locate propane tanks and several additional vehicles.
Arthur said vehicles are still being found, which he believes were older cars that had not been in use.
Gabe Levine outlined the ongoing recovery efforts as of the town hall meeting. He said resources have come in from across the state and from multiple states throughout the Southwest, as well as from other areas of the country.
Governor Katie Hobbs declared a state of emergency over the weekend, directing state agencies to provide direct assistance and activating the state’s public assistance fund to help with response and recovery in Gila County. The declaration enables coordinated aid across multiple agencies and levels of government.
Levine said the state’s immediate focus is to continue supporting Gila County in strengthening its disaster assistance center and ensuring residents have access to direct aid. State officials are also completing detailed damage and impact assessments to determine eligibility for various recovery programs and funding sources.
The state-operated disaster assistance center is open daily from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. At least a dozen agencies are already on site, including the Red Cross, Southern Baptist Disaster Relief, the Salvation Army, Team Rubicon, Community Bridges, the Arizona Department of Economic Security, DOT, APS, the Department of Agriculture, the Registrar of Contractors, the Department of Insurance and Financial Institutions, and the Department of Veterans’ Services.
Residents can also call a phone bank at 928-402-8888 for questions or referrals. The line is open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Wright said people who have a need that isn’t already being addressed at the center should call so he can make sure everyone is getting the support they need.
Fos business owners, officials from the state are working toward activating the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program. This requires at least five businesses to document economic losses in order to initiate the process.
Carl Melford noted that the county is coordinating additional assistance for both residents and business owners through the Salvation Army and the United Fund of Globe-Miami. These organizations are collecting donations and developing a relief program modeled after the community aid effort launched during the Telegraph Fire.
Melford said several options exist for reporting and receiving help. The county has a self-report tool people can use, which is linked through a QR code on the county’s flyers. County damage assessment teams are going door-to-door, and people can always call the phone bank at 928-402-8888.
This depends on your location. Inside Globe city limits, residents should contact the City of Globe. People in the Town of Miami should contact the town. Elsewhere in Gila County, you should contact the county. Melford said mold will be an issue in flooded homes, and environmental health specialists working out of the Emergency Operations Center will be assisting with that.
Melford said issues involving condemned homes fall under the jurisdiction of City of Globe Public Works, although he didn’t have specific information about what the city will do.
Melford said this issue falls under the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality. People should call the phone bank or tell their damage assessor, and the state will send an environmental health team out to evaluate the situation.
People should contact their insurance company first and should ask if a rental is available. For residents who don’t have access to a car, the county is coordinating with Cobre Valley Transit to include the Disaster Assistance Center on its route.
Melford said people can contact or visit the Disaster Assistance Center, and that he is personally familiar with resources for accessibility equipment.
Several organizations at the Disaster Assistance Center are offering mental health support. For example, the nonprofit HOPE has brought therapy dogs to local responders and residents.
State routes and highways can be monitored through az511.com, which provides real-time traffic and closure information. Local updates are being shared through the City of Globe and Gila County Facebook pages. People who don’t use Facebook can call the phone bank for information or to connect with help.
Again, Melford said the Disaster Assistance Center or the phone bank is the best place to start. To volunteer, he urged people to go through established organizations or the DAC whenever possible. He pointed out that the state can’t send out volunteers who aren’t vetted through an organization, due to liability issues. However, the Good Samaritan Law does protect neighbors helping neighbors, so people can always knock on someone’s door and ask for help.
Melford said the county’s hydrologist and Public Works team are working to determine the storm’s official classification, and they have requested data from the National Weather Service that will help with those calculations. There is very limited rain gauge data in the area, but the flow measurements that are available “didn’t align with existing models,” Melford said. He believes this flood was well beyond a 100-year event and could have been a 200- or even 500-year flood.
Paul Jepson, Globe’s city manager, said Connie’s Bridge was engineered as a 50-year flood bridge, not a 100-year bridge. He said a 100-year design wasn’t physically possible because of where the railroad track and Broad Street sit. If it had been built to the 100-year standard, it would have been so high that there would have been no way to build ramps up to it. Engineers told the City that due to the 50-year design, during a 100-year flood, there would be flooding from Connie’s to the Stratton house, and that’s exactly what did happen.
Councilman Mariano Gonzales also weighed in on the design construction of the bridge.
Speaking about the construction and performance of Connie’s Bridge, the councilman said the project was built by ADOT under contract and closely monitored by both ADOT and the City’s engineers.
He acknowledged that the project took longer than expected, but explained why: “There was a three-inch design error by the consultant that had to be corrected, and the concrete contractor failed some tests. Our engineers caught it, and ADOT required the contractor to redo the work — all the way down to bedrock.”
Although the delays frustrated many, he said the wait was worth it. “I’d rather have a solid bridge than a rushed one, especially when we’re spending the public’s money,” he said. “Once completed, it was tested almost immediately by a major storm — and it held. I can cross it today knowing it was built right and will stand up to the next flood.”
He added that Connie’s Bridge was designed to withstand powerful floodwaters, reinforced with two-inch rebar and anchored to bedrock. ADOT oversaw every phase of construction, and city engineers inspected and held the contractor accountable for quality.
Reflecting on the recent flood, he said the event exceeded even a 100-year storm. “We were lucky to have that bridge in place,” he noted. “It did exactly what it was designed to do.”
Looking ahead, the councilman emphasized that planning and funding for future flood-control projects will require cooperation with ADOT, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and federal and state partners. “These things take time, money, and teamwork,” he said. “But this bridge shows what happens when we hold the line on quality.”
Melford said the county rebroadcasts National Weather Service warnings but is unable to originate flash-flood alerts. The county doesn’t have its own climatologists, so it has no way to predict weather. He also pointed out that this storm was far worse than had been anticipated, and the prep time was much less than during the Telegraph Fire.
Melford was asked to explain why the warnings for the flood were not as detailed, helpful, and prompt as they were was during the fire evacuations. He said the Ready, Set, Go framework is used as the standard for all evacuations, but flash floods develop so quickly that it makes the situation very different from fires. Also, the burn scar has made it harder to predict how rain events will turn into floods.
Gabe Levine said the state does have mitigation programs and will work with Gila County to plan projects using both state and federal funding programs. There are also federal programs that could provide funding, and state grant administrators are working with the county on that.
Melford pointed out that this was a disaster on a par with an earthquake, and no amount of mitigation could have prevented it.
“You can do what you can to recover and prepare, but realistically, with an event of this catastrophic magnitude, there was nothing that could have been done to avoid this.” Carl Melford
However, Levine said there are things that can be put in place to help reduce the risks of future floods. These include early warning systems with flood gauges, sirens, and automated notification systems that are automated.
In terms of how mitigation will work at the local level, Melford said large disasters trigger after-action reviews and plan updates. He mentioned the Russell Gulch watershed, where multi-million-dollar improvements, such as the Hospital Drive bridge work, were overwhelmed during the flood.
Melford said property ownership is such a patchwork in creek corridors—with private parcels, mining company holdings, and the city and county land being broken into small segments—that getting work done there is extremely complicated. Also, Army Corps rules limit the work that can be done in channels.
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