Monsoon storms packed quite a wallop over the weekend.
On Monday afternoon, there were 1,128 customers still without power as of about 2:44 p.m. Monday due to this past weekend’s monsoon storms.
As of 3:30 p.m. Monday, 248 Sun City APS customers were still without power.
At the peak over the weekend, there were about 32,000 customers out, with the majority located in the Valley, according to APS.
“Since storms hit this past weekend, APS crews have been working around the clock under challenging conditions to restore power for customers and repair damages to our system caused by extreme weather impacting multiple regional utilities,” said Yessica del Rincón, a spokeswoman at APS.
“Due to the extent of these damages, it is taking longer than normal to restore power.”
Crews are on-site at “various locations” identifying and assessing broken structures caused by intense winds and working on repairs, del Rincón said.
“Our crews are removing damaged equipment, digging new holes (sometimes by hand, given the mud and access issues we’re encountering), and then setting fresh poles and restringing wire,” del Rincón said. “While it takes time, please know our crews are working day and night to get customers back on. We appreciate our customers’ patience and encourage them to monitor our outage map and seek out cooling and heat relief resources if necessary. You can find more information available on heat relief resources at aps.com/assistance.”
The Flood Control District of Maricopa County rainfall map showed Sun City West receiving 0.71 inches of rain while Surprise received 0.67 inches over the two-day span, the map said.
The West Valley received strong winds and blowing dust, said Flood Control District of Maricopa County officials.
“Most of the immediate West Valley (Glendale, Peoria, etc) got skipped over for rain and instead dealt with strong winds and blowing dust," said Daniel Henz, meteorologist for the Flood Control District. "Far West Valley (Surprise and Sun City) saw much larger totals as the large cluster of storms re-intensified before pushing (northwest) towards Wickenburg.”
East Valley residents seemed to take the brunt of the damage caused by monsoon storms.
Wind gusts of up to 80 mph knocked down some power lines in the Mesa area and destroyed a mobile home, sending a woman to a hospital by ambulance, the Associated Press reported.
“Authorities said the unidentified woman was trapped under debris after the monsoon hit Sunday night,” the AP reported. Her name, age and medical condition weren’t immediately available Monday, the story said.
The AP story said the mobile home was “reduced to piles of rubble” with debris scattered across the property and roadway.
Thousands of homes reported electrical outages and State Route 87 was closed in both directions near Mesa due to fallen power lines that authorities say might take several days to repair, the story said.
Journalism has fascinated Brent Ruffner since junior high school.
Since 2001, his stories have been published in newspapers from the Albuquerque to the Arizona and he has always had a knack for making sure his facts are right and his words are to the point.
Growing up, Brent watched as sports reporters covered his beloved Phoenix Suns, a team he followed since Charles Barkley first arrived in Phoenix via trade in 1992. Sports reporting was a dream back then.
But after gaining some writing experience, Brent found a love for news instead of covering different types of sports. In 2008, he moved to New Mexico and covered crime, schools and city beats all while holding elected officials accountable.
He covered stories that ranged from a DEA drug bust gone bad to an award-winning story on school lunches.
In Arizona, Brent was a freelance writer who covered everything from the importance of citrus in the state to Esteban owning a store in downtown Prescott.
Brent is a 2007 graduate of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.
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