Arizona Daily Star from Tucson, Arizona • Page 10

Page Ten Section A mit Arizona DailH Star YQ-J IWVfiiM Tucson, Friday, September 26, 1997 Nora "We just didn't want to chance it with them," Cruz said. Sleeping bags and foam mats were spread through out the multipurpose room and hallways. The evacuees brought jugs of water, pillows and blankets. "I brought my big army man with a helmet and I brought my. giraffe (figurine)," said 11-year-old Dallas Johnson.

Dallas was looking forward to seeing a storm, he said. But by late afternoon, only high winds rolled through the rural reservation communities. Despite the dying storm, people in the four evacuation centers stayed put. "People are still concerned," said Jeff Gilbert, assistant fire chief in Sells. "We've encouraged people to stay.

What occurs when it rains is it creates islands." The early evacuations and emergency planning were in contrast to the 1983 flood when National Guard helicopters had to drop off food and blankets to people stranded in at least 10 isolated villages. "The last time something1 of this nature happened in 1983 there wasn't a whole lot of anything, and most of the help came from outside," said Tohono O'odham police Capt. Gary Quinn. Even small amounts of rain mmmm hurt the flood-prone Continued from Page One ter" once Nora hit land. Nora dumped nearly 3 inches a year's normal rainfall of rain on Yuma and forced precautionary evacuations in parts of the Tohono O'odham Nation, but brought little to Tucson other than dark clouds and 30 mph winds, he said: Nora may give state emergency officials some ideas about how to handle heavy winter rains churned up by El Nino.

Steve Jewett, a Tucson businessman who runs Gov. Jane Hull's Southern Arizona office, will head up a task force to study the possible effects of El Nino on the state. Jewett also worked with state emergency officials responding to Nora. "It was a good drill not only for us but for everybody," Marana Public Works Director David Atler said yesterday. "We're realty hoping it will open some eyes and get the bank protection that's been promised for so many years." The Santa Cruz River, which flows north more than seven miles through Marana, overflowed its banks when tropical storm Octave dumped 6.71 inches of rain in the Tucson area over mmmm four days starting Sept.

29, 1983. "We've Three people working Leo Smith, the aster plan Photos Manuel Rosas Perez of Puerto Penasco shores up his sheet-rock home with two-by-fours against Nora's by David Sanders, The Arizona Daily Star fury Mexico Pima County Flood Ullf itr "We don have Control District's Ume' DUC We JUSC any bridges," he said, division manager, had tO get Olir act "Even the little bit of said that stretch of i i rain that we got the Santa Cruz is together and nurry (Wednesday) left slated for a $14 mil- Up a little bit." three communities lion bank protection cut coudn't project that could Ora Ham get to them." start next spring. Marana mayor About 20 adults "We're anxious to do and children bunked Continued from Page One the Mexican navy saved the crew of seven before the boat was beached. No deaths or injuries resulted from the storm, said Puerto Penasco's police chief, Ruben Salido Martinez. Last night, about 300 residents were staying in shelters at local schools.

One of them was Maria Salud Ayala Garcia, whose house was damaged in the morning by a falling tree. "We screamed," Ayala said of herself and her five children. 'After it fell, we left." They went to Technical School 37, where 220 people spent at least part of the day. Many sat at desks or in plastic chairs, biding their time until the winds died down and they could survey the damage. Many expected to stay throughout the night and perhaps into the weekend.

They were given blankets and simple meals of canned food. The storm struck Puerto Penasco at about 8:30 a.m. local time, when sheets of rain began falling. By noon, the rain had IN NORA'S PATH Yesterday's rainfall In inches Yuma 2.77 Blythe, Calif. Parker 0.94 San Diego 0.75 Needles, Calif.

0.35 Los Angeles 0.26 Gila Bend 0.22 Phoenix 0.03 Casa Grande 0.03 Williams 0.01 Pipe Spring NM trace TUCSON none Honeymooner Ed Covarrubias of Phoenix watches hotel workers tape up windows been area, said Ken Cronin, environmental specialist with the Sells Planning on a dis tor SOme Department. up at Topawa Middle School. There, school officials stacked sand bags in front of the doors of two modular buildings. "We just set up 1 1 Gateway computers in there we worked hard to get those," said school Principal Patsy Delp. San Simon High School also drew 173 people last night, while 61 stayed at the Santa Rosa Boarding School.

The mining town of Ajo, about 120 miles west of Tucson, planned for massive flooding that could have cut off highways in all directions. An emergency shelter was to open at Ajo High School, and the health clinic agreed to stay open if necessary. The town of 4,500 was hit by 52 mph gusts yesterday, but received less rainfall than expected about a third of an inch, said Lt. Paul Wilson, commander of Pima County Sheriff Department's Ajo district substation. "We just didn't get the weather," Wilson said.

A tree or branch fell on the roof of one house. A shed door blew off and punctured the side of an above-ground pool. Other tree branches and stop signs were knocked down, Wilson said. "I've seen summer thunderstorms worse than this," Wilson said. In Phoenix, Nora was a big no-show after two days of intense build-up.

Thousands of Phoenix residents lined up to fill sandbags at various locations throughout the valley, and supermarkets reported higher sales of staples such as bottled water and batteries. But yesterday dawned beneath partly cloudy skies, a light breeze stirring a slightly cooler-than-nor-mal morning. By midday, high clouds moved in, and by about 3:30 p.m., rain began to fall in various parts of the valley. Showers were predicted to continue most of the evening, but no flood or severe thunderstorm warnings or watches were posted for the Phoenix area. Arizona Daily Star reporters Sha un McKinnon and Sarah Tully Tapia contributed to this story.

"Just with pieces of wood, we'll close it up again," Paredes said. As he spoke, friends hammered fragments of plywood over holes in spots where the wall had been ripped away. Police and soldiers patrolled Paredes' neighborhood, an impoverished area known as the "Lost City," and reported a few incidents of looting. The storm scared off some tourists, but many of those who stayed seem to em'oy it. As the waves mounted, Karen Poe and her husband dived into the Sea of Cortez.

"There's not many times you can say you swam in a tropical storm," said Poe, 29, of Glendale. After the swim, she returned to the lobby of the Hotel Plaza Las Glorias, where water poured in through the roof. "Our room is flooding right now, so, I'm getting towels," she said. "We can swim in our own room." At Cholla Bay, a community where many Arizonans have homes, damage was minimal. But at high tide, about midday, it looked as if damage were inevitable, said John Monroe, who has a seaside home.

"For a while, I thought the whole cabana was going," said Monroe, 57, of Phoenix. A similar thought occurred to Evangelina de Valenzuela as she stood on El Malecon, a seaside road in the tourist center of Puerto Penasco. It was high tide," and waves were smashing just below the walls of her family-owned restaurant. "I hope the wind doesn't change, that it keeps coming from the same direction, the south, because if it were to change, El Malecon would disappear," she said. The wind didn't change direction before weakening in the late afternoon.

The sun also came out. ceased, but the wind increased. Rainfall totals were not available. Across the city, trees, billboards, electric wires -and taco stands blew into the streets, which were filled with deep puddles. City officials turned off electricity at about 10 a.m.

because of the falling lines. It was restored at about 4:30 p.m., Salido said. Highways to the U.S. border at Lukeville and to the Sonoran city of Caborca also were closed for about six hours. Despite a blizzard of sand in the outskirts of the city, Gilberto Paredes Gosgalla started repairing the walls of his two-room house yesterday afternoon.

this as quickly as we can," he said. The levee would hook up to the existing bank protection at Continental Ranch south of Avra Valley Road, then go north 77a miles to Sanders Road. Pima County Flood Control brought sandbagging equipment down from Phoenix on Wednesday -and fielded numerous calls from people wanting to know about sandbags, Smith said. "It's going to be a wet year," he said. And if the rain comes in significant storms, as Nora could have been, "then we could be very busy," he said.

"We're not home free yet," said Marana Mayor Ora Mae Harn, who lives a mile from the Santa Cruz but found herself waist deep in flood water in October 1983. "Our people are really at great risk if we have a flood anything near like-we had we had in in 1983," she" All Marana employees went on standby Wednesday as part of the, town's emergency operation plan. Officials filled 2,000 50-pound sandbags, stockpiled sand in several areas around town for citizens and assigned spotters to watch the river. The town also arranged for potable water to be trucked to Marana if water service was disrupted a function the National Guard carried out in 1983. "We've been working on a disaster plan for some time, but we just had to get our act together and hurry up a little bit," Harn said.

"We at least have everything together now. We scurried around and we got everything in place." About 250 people in western Pima County opted for hard-tiled gymnasium floors last night on the off chance that storms would increase overnight. They feared both flooding and the high winds that blew through Tohono O'odham villages. "Some homes are not secure with roofing," said Gloria Cruz, a community health worker who brought first-aid supplies to the Baboquivari High School in Sells. Most of the 27 people who stayed at the school were elders with chronic health problems.

Some were on oxygen. Others needed a series of medications. Yuma bears down as Nora pulls 1 vfV her punch glad it wasn't any worse than it was." In low-lying Somerton, about 14 miles south of Yuma, authorities ordered more than 100 residents to evacuate their homes, said Carol Miller, spokeswoman for the American Red Cross. Last night, about half were still at a local school being used as an emergency shelter. Throughout Yuma, Nora knocked down seven power lines, cutting power to more than 10,000 customers.

Power had been restored for some of those customers by early evening'. The storm also damaged traffic lights with wind gusts of about 55 mph. Most businesses and all schools were closed as a result of the wet weather. Cotton and vegetable fields in and around Yuma were soaked but not visibly damaged. But agriculture officials were still assessing the amount of storm damage to farmland in the region and California's neighboring Imperial Valley.

Together, the areas supply much of the VJS. winter supply of State officials monitored the storm throughout the day from the Emergency Operations Center in east Phoenix, but the storm's unpredictable path left more work in the areas where it actually hit. La Paz and Mohave counties declared local emergencies, potentially freeing up money and other aid from the state, but by late in the day Gov. Jane Hull had not issued formal declarations. Hull declared an emergency in Yuma County Wednesday, pledging up to $200,000 in state funding for storm preparations and flood cleanup.

By Angelica Pence The Arizona Daily Star YUMA Hurricane Nora, or rather its weakened tropical remnants, blew through town yesterday with much less gusto than was feared by weather watchers. "There hasn't been a storm like this in more than 20 years," warned one local radio broadcaster just hours before Nora hit Yuma. "Bear down. We'll get through it." Bear down they did. By 7:30 a.m., a winding stream of vehicles stretched nearly two miles around the Yuma Civic and Convention Center where sandbags were being doled out by the dozen.

Teams of local firefighters, Marines, Boy Scouts and residents helped fill and distribute nearly 300,000 white plastic sacks with the soppy sand. More than two dozen members of the National Guard based in Phoenix were deployed here. Yuma, about 200 miles west of Tucson, is tucked into the southwest corner of the state. The National Guard brought three helicopters, four water buffalo trucks filled with potable water and other search-and-rescue equipment. Extra oxygen and blood were delivered to local hospitals, and the city's Humane Society set up a temporary boarding house for pets.

"It kind of a strange thing, this hurricane weather, to be dealing with in the desert, said Sonja Bamette, who moved to Yuma from Mississippi in June to escape hurricane-type weather. "But this community has really come together because of it, and that's a very good thing." she said. Barnette, along with her Boy Scout son, Kris, were among the iiSSs- Nora dropped 2.77 inches of rain, many volunteers helping to fill wheat seed bags in the rain. Longtime residents who remember Tropical Storm Kathleen said the extensive preparations were necessary. Indeed, a September 1976 newspaper headline tells of one dead, 1 1 hurt and millions of dollars in damage estimated as Kathleen hit Yuma.

More than two decades later, Nora seemed equally menacing as she whipped up the Gulf of California early in the week with immense force. And she was still categorized a tropical storm, after all, when her center passed over this city of about 63.000 in the early afternoon. By late afternoon, 2.77 inches of rain had fallen a huge amount for a city used to less than Jeffry Scott, The Arizona Daily Star a lot for bone-dry Yuma 3 inches in an entire year. Officials closed down 25 roads and portions of U.S. 95 as water brimming in wash areas spilled onto stretches of the interstate between Yuma and Quartzsite, 80 miles to the north.

Most flooded sections were reopened by last night. No serious injuries were reported by midafternoon, but emergency sirens screamed throughout Yuma County as the storm moved north along the Colorado River Valley with tapered down 39-mph winds. Sieve Wyant, battalion chief for the Yuma Fire Department, said the city was prepared for emergency response efforts. "We put an awful Jot of work into this," Wyant said. "You can never be too careful, but we're Bwc McCMUnd, Th Arizona Daflr Star Health car worker Gloria Cruz, standing, distributes medicine to evacuees Amelia Cipriano, left, and ANaleah Sam at Baboquharl High School in Sells..