Portal after Odile: Bob Rodrigues' Story

Bob Rodgrigues (who owns the property still familiar to some of you as "Jasper's feeders"), sent this account of the changes to the flow of Cave Creek where it crosses his land, below the mouth of Cave Creek Canyon. In Bob's words:

"I could not have imagined our flood scenario if I had not seen it. Water has receded, probably about 5 ft, and I took a walk up the creek yesterday (19 Sept.). The original channel had very little flow and was mostly dry higher up. I reached a point up channel where the creek had jumped the bank and changed course, moving south of the existing or original channel.

Figure 1 (Photos by Bob Rodrigues)

"In Fig. 1, I am standing in the original channel shooting upstream at the breach. I think that the huge volume of water quickly wore away the old bank and that the land below was a bit lower resulting in the new creek course to the south. The old creek channel resembles an oxbow.

Figure 2

"Fig. 2 was taken above the point at which the creek breached the old channel. At the peak of flooding a huge volume of water, perhaps a foot or two deep, was flowing over land both to the left and right of the breach.

Figure 3

Figure 4

"The new channel widened below this point (Figs. 3 and 4).

Figure 5

"The flooding resulted in significant bank erosion on the north bank of the creek on my property (Fig. 5). The three sycamores in Fig. 5 had been attached to land at or very near the creek bank. The telephone line along Foothills Road is visible in the photo.

Figure 6

"Figure 6 was taken from Foothills Road on the (more or less) north side of the creek. All of the rock and debris on the far side was under water and not visible 2 days ago.

Figure 7

"Water rose to the top of the bank in the bird-feeder area but did not quite flow to the picnic table (Fig. 7).

"So that's my story and I'm sticking to it."

Bob