Maricopa wakes up to 6 months' worth of rain in a single night

Just after 6 a.m., as Maricopa families began to stir for work and school, water was still flowing, rumbling across streets that had been dry the night before.

By dawn, the desert had swallowed a storm that, in the words of the city’s stormwater chief, was “going to be a big deal.” In some parts of Maricopa, 4.1 inches had fallen, nearly half of a year’s worth of rain pressed into a single night. It all ran over a soil that has baked to a crust under a summer sun.

Two roads in Rancho El Dorado had given up entirely, surrendering to the flood and closing under the police’s warning: Do not enter flooded roadways. The floodgates between Desert Cove and Santa Rosa locked shut. As the water receded to a passable amount, the posted warnings remained: “Water on Roadway.”

Families