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Monsoon: Cleanup still taking place in Globe
It has been almost a week since a powerful monsoon storm slammed Globe, a community located to the east of Phoenix, and the cleanup efforts are far from finished. FOX 10's Brian Webb reports.
PHOENIX - As of Oct. 2, it has been six days since severe storms slammed Globe, and the clean-up is far from finished.
The backstory:
Rain quickly turned to flash flooding in the Miami and Globe areas on Thursday, Sept. 25 and Friday, Sept. 26, causing significant damage to homes and businesses.
In previous reports, residents said water rose to car bumpers, and thick mud covered one street. Residents reported that the severe weather displaced several people and businesses. In one case, a building's roof was blown off.
Dig deeper:
The Caldera family home was among the hardest hit.
Owned by the family since the early 1950s, it sits right along a wash. Over the years, the family pitched in to build a retaining wall piece by piece, and it lasted for more than 70 years.
After the storm, the Caldera home's walls were pushed in. Meanwhile, the carpet looks like it was made of mud, and the flood line is at a waist-high level.
"What is it like to see this house now, what it looks like today?" we asked Eddie Caldera.
"It hurts. It hurts bad," said Caldera.
Eddie and his wife, Norma, were at the home on the night of Sept. 26 when they noticed the water in the wash rising fast. He went outside for a look around, and before they knew it, she was stuck inside.
"I yelled at him, ‘I can’t get out!’ And so he was hitting the door. He broke a rib," Norma Caldera said. "Then he broke the window and we got out and then we went down on the fence here and just hanging on as tight as we could."
Local perspective:
The wash behind the house is now a beehive of activity. Crews are using chainsaws and brute force to clear trees and limbs while neighbors grab shovels, scooping up pile after pile of debris. Nearby, two vintage tricycles were found resting on a rooftop.
A few blocks away, a debris pile roughly 15 feet tall and 100 feet long serves as a collection point. It contains everything from old mattresses to washing machines and refrigerators, growing with truckload after truckload as the cleanup continues with no end in sight.
The Calderas have been getting help from family, friends and complete strangers, who have provided food, water, clothes and beds. At the house, they salvage what they can and throw away the rest.
Several generations grew up in the home, and they hate to see it go. But they feel blessed for the memories the home gave them and lucky they made it out alive.
"We’re just blessed that they’re here," said Robert Caldera, Eddie's brother. "But to be 72 and 71 and starting over from zero, that’s the hard part."
What's next:
The family says there’s no saving the home itself. They will have to tear it down and find a new place to live.