1 year later: Reminders of flash-flood tragedy
Mementos nailed to a tree are reminders that 10 people died last year in a flash flood at a swimming hole near Payson. Clouds overhead also remind hikers that a similar event could happen again.
NEAR PAYSON — The East Verde River was nearly dry from the drought, but rain in the past week had muddied the standing water.
Saturday was a typical summer monsoon day at Water Wheel Recreation Area in the Tonto National Forest outside of Payson: hot and humid, and undecided as to whether it wanted to spit rain or bake in the sun.
Much of the debris has been cleared from the trails along the river, which is not much more than a creek, and barely running.
The only other reminders that 10 people died here in a flash flood were the flowers and photos and memorabilia nailed to a tree in the parking lot and the fluffy white clouds rolling fast overhead, reminding hikers that it could start raining at any moment.
A year ago, on July 15, 2017, a woman, four of her grown children, a spouse, a girlfriend and several grandchildren came here from the Phoenix area for a Saturday family outing, celebrating a birthday.
It was just the same kind of a hot monsoon day, overcast, threatening rain, but they were set on spending it outdoors in the mountains.
They’d settled on Water Wheel by chance. Originally, they were headed farther north to Tonto Natural Bridge, but they changed course for Water Wheel, a series of swimming holes where the mostly dry Ellison Creek spills into the East Verde River.
What they didn’t know was that a line of thunderstorms had raked the Mogollon Rim 15 to 20 miles north of there. It had washed through the burned scar of a forest fire from a month earlier and engorged the usually dry streambeds with water and logs and other fire debris. The blackened sludge funneled down into Ellison Creek.
The Garcia family, all 14 of them, had just crossed the East Verde River and were heading up a rocky embankment between the two thin streams of Ellison Creek, headed toward a series of pools uphill and upstream.
Suddenly, a 5-foothigh wave slammed down on them, knocking them off their feet and propelling them through chutes and waterfalls that would have killed them instantly.
Ten died: Selia Garcia Casteneda, 57; her daughter Maria Raya Garcia, 27; Maria’s husband, Hector Miguel Garnica, 27; their three children, Emily, 3, Mia, 5, and Daniel, 7; Maria’s sister Maribel Raya Garcia, 24, and her daughter, Erika Camacho Raya, 2; Maria and Maribel’s brother Javier Garcia, 19; and another of Selia’s grandchildren, Jonatan Leon, 13.
Over the next two days, their bodies were pulled from pools and piled debris; one of them was recovered days later and miles downstream.
But four family members survived: Julio Cesar Garcia and his girlfriend, Esthela Abigail Atondo, their year-old daughter, Marina, and Cesar’s 8year-old son, Acis Raiden. Abigail and Raiden had been washed to the sides of the flood and were able to get out of the water. Cesar was carrying Marina, and he managed to grab hold of a tree at the confluence of the creek and the river.
With Saturday’s low water level, that tree stood high up on the riverbanks. The river was so low that you could step across from stone to stone.
Ellison Creek was running in two slender streams, the only moving water to reach the river.
Hikers picked their way among the rocks. Most of them were regulars who knew about the tragedy. They had been waiting for the area to open, because, like most Arizona forests, it had been closed because of fire danger.
Such a tranquil place — with so much potential danger.
On Wednesday, Forest Service recreational Ranger Miguel Angel Quintero came to take down the chains into the area for the first time this summer. On Saturday, rangers put up new signs.
“I requested them in Spanish as well,” Quintero said.
Flash Flood Area, they say.