GILA BEND, AZ — A stretch of road that has been shut down dozens of times during the summer months because of flash flooding has no plans to be fixed, according to state transportation officials.
State Route 238 is often used as a ’short cut’ to connect those in the East Valley to popular vacation destinations like San Diego, or Rocky Point. But, flash flooding has shut down the road dozens of times in the past few years leading to families having to be rescued.
Back in September, 32 people had to be rescued, including Keith Faber, his wife and son, “We have never driven that road before,” he said, “but the GPS took us that way, we didn’t question the GPS.”
State Route 238 connects from Maricopa to Gila Bend, it’s about a 40-mile stretch of road that is a two-lane highway, in essence nowhere to turn around. The road is filled with “dips” with several low-lying crossings that washes run over after heavy rainfall.
Faber recalls how the cars on SR 238 went one by one, “When it was our time to go, we went, and by the time water had risen up and got stuck.”
Maricopa Fire and Medical responded that night rescuing 32 people, along with Goodyear Fire crews.
Faber said the sun was setting as his family waited to be rescued, “you’re out in the middle of nowhere, service is terrible, losing light, it’s a 20-mile road, you’re ten miles in, you don’t know what to do.”
Tim Jones with the Goodyear Fire Department said it took him and his partner eight hours to rescue families as they used a brush truck that was high enough to cross the water, “A lot of times these come at night, visibilities a factor, the time, and just getting resources, other departments or agencies to help,” he said.
The photos shared with us from Goodyear Fire are hours later, as the water was already receding.
ADOT officials were not available for an on-camera interview for our report.
The Arizona Department of Transportation maintains only one section of the long road, along with Gila Bend, and Maricopa County.
ADOT did a study in 2020 about flash flooding and found that the size of the culverts is not consistent with the contributing flows, “The solution proposed in the SR 238 Drainage Study is to place new culverts (CMP & RCB) at the “Dip Sections” and raise the SR 238 profile at these locations,” the study found.
The report states that construction should be limited during the summer because of the flooding, “construction during monsoon season should be avoided due to the flooding conditions of the areas under this project.”
On average, transportation officials with Maricopa County say about 3,000 vehicles travel on SR 238 a day, making it a ‘low-volume’ road.
ADOT’s improvement of $54 million would be for their section of the road, and Maricopa County’s improvements would be over $40 million.
However, despite the known issues, ADOT officials say they don’t have the $54 million in funding to make changes.
Some of those changes include widening the road and raising the road’s profile. The report talks about how the ground between SR 238 is relatively flat, and that’s why part of the plan to fix the flooding would be constructing berms/dikes.
Chris Riggs, Mayor of Gila Bend told ABC15 that they also perform rescues on their stretch of SR 238, “We’re going to pay more because we're doing a lot of rescues where people get stranded.”
Mayor Riggs feels the state should take over the road instead of multiple jurisdictions trying to maintain different sections, “all of it holds a little piece of that road, so maybe we can get state to come in here, ok were going to take it over, manage it that way.”
ADOT’s report even mentioned a road parallel to SR 238, “A twenty-six feet wide detour running parallel to SR 238 was considered at the reconstruction locations. A total length of 15 miles was considered for estimating purposes.”
For someone who, like Faber, had to be rescued, he doesn’t plan to use the road again if there’s a cloud in the sky, “In my opinion that road should not be open if there’s even a chance of rain,” he said.