Massive runoff, evacuations in Verde Valley…pics from my backyard! by Jeff Oravits


West Clear Creek runs through the northern portion of our property east of Camp Verde. The creek is normally about 10’ wide and 2’ deep.

The floods ran about 200’ across. Normal creek width at this section is about 8-10’. Dept was well over 12’.

Last nights rain combined with runoff from the rim brought the creek water about 2’ shy of breaching the “higher ground” of our property. Fortunately it’s now slowly receding.

View from the back yard. Normally you walk down about an 8’ bank to the creek bed.
Our normal game watching spot is flooded.

Evacuations were recommended for areas of Camp Verde, including ours. We loaded up and lined up our vehicles just in case.

Vehicles at the ready.

Logs and other debris shot down the creek including large cottonwood stumps the size of small vehicles.

My son Owen assesses the damage from flooding.



Categories: Jeff's TOP NEWS Picks, State of Arizona

4 replies

  1. Wow Jeff, stay safe. There’s no doubt more flooding to come as our huge snow fall melts (about 6th highest in 120 years) and at our Southeast Flagstaff house we’ve gotten 1.74” of rain so far during March.

  2. DO NOT drop that cup of coffee Jeff. Jillian & Tommy drink coffee with our rescue teams. Enjoy Erin go bragh Friday with bubbly water in your beer 🍺 mugs

  3. Thank you for your beautiful STREAMflow pictures and your beautiful family.
    For your information, the verde Streamflow gage, started at # 8 ft + and today/last night’s highest, was: # 20.5 ft. ++ @ # 40,000 CFS. Information from: USGS, VERDE RIVER GAGE.
    Your radio show, with/and your family discussions, is very interesting and Great.
    Thank you for presenting/being, a good example, of family sharing/togetherness, family opinions, ha ha’s and honoring each others’ information.
    The family picture, is also, the best !
    The verde river flood, of # Feb 2019, was the 1st major flood, since the # 1993 flood incident, in Camp Verde.
    The # 2019 flood, was # 50,000 CFS + (Cubic feet Second).

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