Mayor of Globe talks about the impacts of devastating floods

More than two weeks ago, water devastated the small town of Globe— flooding homes and businesses. It even sent hundreds of gas tanks floating into town, and the smell of gas was in the air.

The communities were still trying to recover from deadly flooding a few weeks ago, when they were hit with fresh flood damage after more storms over the weekend and on Monday.

The latest downpour caused water to overflow bridges. Additionally, many buildings remain off-limits due to water damage.

Mayor of Globe, Al Gameros, joined “Arizona Horizon” to discuss how these floods affected the town.

“…trying to assess all our buildings, structural and integrity, residential homes,” Gameros said, “…there were a lot of homes that were destroyed in this whole disaster, but it’s been a lot of work trying to make it a point to move forward.”

The initial flooding began on the 26th, and since then, the town has been through a massive cleanup. They are still in recovery and assessing any damage that may have occurred across the town. There were three fatalities as a result of this flooding, two occurring in Globe and one in a nearby town, Miami.

“We had 59 businesses…tagged, several of them have opened up,” Gameros explained, “…we just fenced out seven buildings that are gonna have to be structurally engineered or taken down in the future.”

Gameros emphasized that the residential district was hit very hard as a result of the flooding. The majority of the flooding occurred on the northern side of the district, impacting lots of residents and businesses in the downtown area.

“…release some funding to the small business association. They have set up the office in Globe now,” Gameros said, “…these are low-interest loans, three percent, 30-year terms, you don’t have to pay till the first year of initially receiving your first loan…so that’s a big plus.”