Desert Flood

The desert and the desert mountain regions of Arizona receive the benefits of a generous Sun God. Rain, which comes to the desert so seldom and in such small quantities, is the life-giving moisture that all living things in the desert must horde and save for the dry periods that follow the rain. A storm in the desert, however, can be a violent conmingling of sky and earth. In a few minutes great storm clouds stalk over the mountains and hurl their fury against the dry land. Such a storm visited Tortilla Flat one day this summer. Barry Storm, Arizona writer and photographer, was there and recorded in words and photographs a desert storm that in a few minutes almost destroyed the quiet village. While the flood waters attacked his cabin he disregarded all else to record the storm in pictures. It came up suddenly, roared; suddenly left.

But beyond in the vast desert reaches of the wild Superstitions, fabled home of Apache thunder gods, dense billowing clouds had already piled one upon another in ever-growing, ever-darkening thunderheads. Surely, it would rain. It hadn't rained for a long, long time.

Suddenly rain came like an ominous curtain flung over horizon and sun and dawn, driving sheets of rain knifed by livid lightning, whipped by howling wind, rocked by crashing thunder. In the wet, murky greyness disaster waited to spring. The water began to run.

Then each rivulet and creek became a rushing torrent, brought to roaring life a river in the desert. And bowling over trees and rolling ponderous rocks in a churning, thunderous undertone raging, foaming waters swept down over the road, down upon the little desert village.

Forgotten now was sleep and cooking breakfast as rapidly rising water lapped over floors, roared under windows, sent humans scurrying in frenzied, terrified haste to snatch a few possessions, save themselves from the storm's fury, which struck swiftly and with such violence.

Now in screaming wind, lashing rain a hundred square miles of wilderness beyond poured forth a second torrent upon the crest of the first, a roaring, churning, foaming wave half a house high, roaring above the thunder, sweeping down with terrific speed, dooming a village. Houses were engulfed, cabins sailed away into the rushing current. masonry collapsed, trees toppled while humans watched in stupified terror the possessions and work of years vanish in minutes. An ocean of water poured from the surrounding hills, whipped by the wind.

Gone now was the village built too close to the brink of disaster, left behind a wreckage of lumber and flood debris, women too stunned to weep, men staring in stony silence. It all happened in a few rain lashed minutes, without warning. It hadn't rained for a long time.

And as suddenly as they had come the heavy clouds lifted, rain and water and wind vanished. In the distance like a throbbing undertone to the desolate silence the throaty rumble of thunder drifted on in sardonic mockery, thinning, fading, gone. The sun came to the desert.