Sonoyta Bridge?

[rockyptjoe]

This is someone who went thru yesterday at about 5pm....you need to be on FB to see it...(OK...I guess you don't)..

[video=facebook;402480409818766]http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=402480409818766[/video]

 

[rockyptjoe]

[h=6]Sonoyta Detour Updates
[/h][h=6]Sept 15 8 a.m. Per Sonoyta Police Dept. the road remains CLOSED, while water is going down they do not expect to open until at least 10 a.m. and say expect LOOOOONG lines[/h]

 

[wildtoucan]

Had friends in it last night and it was terrible. Lots of people with reservations and could not get thru. Some flew in from other states as well. Not a good weekend for rp. I read that someone had phoned in to tv news about it but no one heard anything. Will probally be on the news today but now it will be in a negative form. I hope they get this new bridge done soon...especially with fall break coming up.

 

[rockyptjoe]

http://cometorockypoint.com/images/maps/sandiego.pdf

A very nice map with directions coming from San Luis

 

[marybna]

I just got a note from Seaside about not being able to cross.

 

[rockyptjoe]

Saw a post somewhere the water was a result of a dam release....is it on the Mexican side or the US side?

 

[wildtoucan]

I wonder why they didnt release water during night when
border is closed. Also could of prepared for it by sand bagging...cause there is plenty of that.

 

[GV Jack]

Terry C just posted on the Sonoyta Detour site that it is open now.

I tried to find a dam on the wash and the river and can't find anything. I did see there is a
resevoir up in AZ on one wash, but can't tie it in. I guess the road from Caborca in is having
flooding problems also. I sure hope this mess clears up by Wednesday.

 

[badfish]

I also tried to find body of water connected to the wash and couldnt find one.

 

[GV Jack]

Now Terry says they just got a call from a lady who says she is stuck at the Circle K.

Who knows what is going on. This is plain rediculous.

 

[playaperro]

Terry C just posted on the Sonoyta Detour site that it is open now.

I tried to find a dam on the wash and the river and can't find anything. I did see there is a
resevoir up in AZ on one wash, but can't tie it in. I guess the road from Caborca in is having
flooding problems also. I sure hope this mess clears up by Wednesday.

Very true Jack, Caborca road is bad at night, a singer from a band lost his life there this week when he hit a wash close to Penasco, three other where taken to hospital.

 

[playaperro]

Sounds like someone's home made dam broke somewhere upstream and the river crossing will be closed all day! What the local sonoyta police are saying.

 

[InkaRoads]

I was looking at google maps and it seems that the picture was taken before the bridge was torn down but you can see the water is coming towards Sonoyta right about where the farm land ends and the town starts, if you look at the river bed at Sonoyta it is dry and as you go east following the river it gets wet from them on to the point where it goes north to AZ and south where it gets dry again, however there is no reservoir or any area where some type of reservoir exist.
If, as the police says, some one built one he must have spent the last 10 years to build for the amount of water it is releasing!

 

[GV Jack]

I was looking at google maps and it seems that the picture was taken before the bridge was torn down but you can see the water is coming towards Sonoyta right about where the farm land ends and the town starts, if you look at the river bed at Sonoyta it is dry and as you go east following the river it gets wet from them on to the point where it goes north to AZ and south where it gets dry again, however there is no reservoir or any area where some type of reservoir exist.
If, as the police says, some one built one he must have spent the last 10 years to build for the amount of water it is releasing!

Inka...I totally agree with you. I did the same thing with Google Maps and looked all over the area and found nothing to resemble a big lake or resevoir.

I think the amount of water that has come through would have drained Patagonia Lake by now...so what gives? We know it's not rain so where can it be coming from?

 

[InkaRoads]

a couple of weeks ago someone in Sonoyta told me that there is a reservoir called "Sells" that they open every now and then, specially when it rains hard, I could not find anything then and could not find anything now, eventhough I even went all the way to Sells, AZ

 

[InkaRoads]

Well, here it is what I found, no reservoir but a series of washes that join together to form the Sonoyta river in Mexico Brian Heffernan : Ever wonder where all the water comes from that floods the Sonoyta bridge detour crossing?

hopefully this will answer many of the questions we had!!!

 

[GV Jack]

OK Inka... I did see a resevoir on a ADWR website earlier and it looked to be near Sells.

According to the Arizona Department of Water Resources (ADWR) the Rio Sonoyta is included in Rio Sonoyta Watershed and is fed directly by the San Simon Wash and Western Mexican Drainage Basin.

Here is a link to more on the San Simon Wash, etc and we may have found the culprit. There are dams there, but where, I don't know. The wash extends quite far to the north and has a number of feeder washes.

I don't have the patience to get through all of that stuff.

http://gilawatershedpartnership.com/yahoo_site_admin/assets/docs/GWP_OCTOBER_2009_NEWSLETTER.280160521.pdf

 

[GV Jack]

Here's another quote from the Sonoyta Detour Facebook page.

"The Gila River drains the central and eastern portions of the planning area. Within the planning area boundaries, the Gila
River extends from Gillespie Dam, located approximately 45 miles southwest of Phoenix, to the Colorado River
confluence, a distance of about 150 miles (Figure 16). The southern portion of the planning area drains southward into
Mexico as part of the Sonoyta River watershed. A small basin of 242 square miles in northern Sonora, Mexico, drains
northward into Arizona, west of Sasabe. This drainage connects with Vamori Wash in Arizona which returns to Mexico
south of Papago Farms (Harshbarger, 1979). Perennial flow does not exist in the southern part of the planning area.
"

 

[Kenny]

Some of you might remember that though it had never really held any water prier (Painted rock), the Painted rock Reservoir and Gillespie became the largest body of waters in AZ in 1993. I'm betting that Gillespie that's part of the bird sanctuary is holding a large amount of water at this time, and there might be a good amout in Painted rock as well.
Until the 1993 flood events, flow on the Gila River was controlled by two dams; Gillespie and Painted Rock. Gillespie Damwas breached in January, 1993 when a 135(+) foot section of the structure collapsed during flooding. Gillespie Dam islocated about 45 miles southwest of Phoenix, at a narrow passage between the Buckeye Hills and the Gila BendMountains. The dam was constructed in 1921 to divert water from the Gila River into two canals that would carryirrigation water to nearby fields and to the Gila Bend area (U.S. Geological Survey, 1923). Most of the low flow in the riverupstream of Gillespie Dam is sewage effluent and irrigation return flow.Painted Rock Dam is located northwest of Gila Bend and was constructed in 1959 to control flood waters that periodicallydamage downstream areas. The Painted Rock Reservoir has a gross capacity of 2 1/2 million acre-feet of storage, but isdesigned to remain empty most of the time. The reservoir reached full capacity during the 1993 flood events andextensive damage occurred downstream as a result of the high volume of spillwater. During less severe flooding, the damretains water and releases it relatively slowly until the reservoir is empty. The water is released at a slow rate to minimizedownstream damage and still empty the reservoir as quickly as possible (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 1977). There is​

no flow below Painted Rock Dam except during flood events.

 

[mis2810]

Wow. I was just reading the Sonoyta Detour Facebook page. Those videos of people crossing through the rushing water are crazy! I wouldn't attempt that-ever. They say the road under all the water is crumbling with huge potholes. Be careful out there!