Gila County receives over $8M to help ease flooding damage during monsoon season

Gila County received state and federal funding to prevent significant flooding in the future and this comes after towns like Miami saw devastating floods this past monsoon season

Miami is just one of the areas hit hard by monsoon storms. At one point, a portion of it looked like a river, something that many in the community have never seen before. 

Now the county is taking measures so it won't happen again.

Gila County flooding sandbags

Gila County flooding sandbags

"Oh my God. Never in my 60 years living in this area. I’ve never seen anything like it. Never," Miami resident Lena Tena said in July as she watched over her flooded neighborhood.

Months later, on Oct. 29, Tena says it's not hard to still think of the devastation, hoping it doesn't happen again.

"We see rain and we start thinking, you know, is it going to start coming down because of the fire and it does get a little eerie," she said.

Many homes in Miami were impacted.

To help with the aftermath of floods, the Natural Resources Conservation Service approved more than $8 million for Gila County.

Gila County flooding

Gila County flooding

"A lot of that money has been to hire contractors to get in these creeks and clean out a lot of the brush and debris and logs and things so the culverts and bridges … don’t clog up to create more damage," said Gila County Supervisor for District 2, Tim Humphrey.

He says the community is thankful for the assistance and he hopes not to see a repeat of this past summer.

"I’m just hoping for moisture because we need it in small doses. We don’t need four inches of rain in a 24 hour period. Four inches of rain over four months' time, we’ll be OK," Humphrey said.

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