By admin 
GLOBE, AZ (AZFamily) — Saturday, Sept. 26 marks one year since devastating flash floods tore through downtown Globe and parts of the Miami area, killing three people and destroying homes, businesses and infrastructure.
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Since then, residents and business owners have worked tirelessly to clear the debris, rebuild what was lost and restore the city they call home.
Rebuild underway at flooded sites
Construction crews are continuing daily work to widen and stabilize waterways at Beer Tree Crossing, one of the areas hardest hit by the flooding.
Crews have been working at the site daily, according to Globe Mayor Al Gameros, to prevent a repeat of last year’s flooding.
“This is an area where the water runs from the Pinal Mountains. It’s 8,000 elevation up there. And this is where it all comes through down before it gets to our city. All these areas like this one have been widened, dug deeper, widened,” he explained.
Mayor Gameros said the city received $24 million from the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) for the work, which is being done in two phases. The current phase includes digging deeper and widening waterways to protect the city’s downtown area.
The mayor said the city is also stabilizing walls and is planning more extensive stabilization of walls and open roadways. He says Globe is accustomed to flash flooding, but not to the magnitude seen a year ago.
“Our businesses have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars into their own business because there is no money from the state or the feds from them at this point,” he explained. “They have to invest their own money back to open their businesses.”
Residents trapped in homes, restaurant
Globe Fire Chief Gary Robinson recalled the moment floodwaters began rising, and firefighters began receiving emergency calls for help.
“We had the initial call that came out that night was for a person trapped in their home with the water rising,” he described.
Robinson said crews were unable to reach the person and had to stage at a higher ground location, which took them out of response capability until the water receded.
“But I was caught up in that as well a little bit, and was isolated to a specific area,” Robinson said. He said the biggest challenge was accessing the downtown corridor at that point.
Robinson said neighboring fire districts that cover the outlying areas were unable to respond to Globe because of the location of their stations.
“The highway corridors were even impacted to the point where you couldn’t get through,” he explained.
Once crews reached the downtown area, people remained trapped inside La Casita restaurant.
“We still had people trapped in the kitchen behind appliances that had floated and jammed in a doorway,” Robinson said.
People from nearby businesses worked alongside firefighters to help get people out of the building and to a safer location.
“People stepped up, people helped; they were here for their fellow neighbors,” Robinson said. “It was good to see, and they were at significant risk to themselves.”
La Casita Café: “It’s a family legacy”
Nowhere is that recovery more visible than at La Casita Café, a 79-year-old Globe restaurant on Broad Street that was one of the flood’s most harrowing scenes.
Co-owner Annie Villalobos said the water moved so violently that staff described it as a whirlpool inside the restaurant, with people climbing on top of tables to escape it.
“I can’t even imagine because there [were] elderly people, there were children there and it could have been a different night that night had the people from up the street at the bar down here didn’t rescue all the people out of here,” Villalobos described. “It could have been devastating. And thank God that everyone was able to get out of here alive.”
When Villalobos first walked back into the restaurant, the damage nearly broke her.
“The first day walking in, wanting to hit the floor and with just seeing the mess in here and thinking it’s going to take us a lot of time to get this place back open,” she said. “But we have amazing community and support. And we, like I said, we set that 40-day goal and we missed it by eight days. And we got our butts in here and we worked very hard to get it back open.”
For Villalobos, reopening was never really a question, because the restaurant carries her family’s history in Globe.
“It’s a family legacy. This is where it all started with my great grandmother Seleucia, and she went through a flood back in the ’50s, and we had no other choice but to get back open,” Villalobos said. “We had to. And it’s not just a restaurant that opens and shuts down just because you don’t have the clientele. We are a staple here in the Globe community, and we aren’t going anywhere.”
A year later, La Casita is welcoming customers back to normal hours with no construction and no restrictions.
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“It’s great to be open to our community and allowing anybody to come in at any time and not being closed and doing construction,” Villalobos said.
“So it’s great to have everybody back, be open normal hours and no restrictions in downtown area. It’s just, it’s great to have our doors back open.”
Customers coming back can expect the same menu that’s kept people coming to La Casita for decades.
Mayor Gameros said La Casita’s story reflects what so many Globe businesses have gone through over the past year — devastating damage followed by a refusal to give up.
One business, one year later
Also on Broad Street, Topo Joe’s mountain bike and UTV rental shop is not just standing again; it’s growing.
Owner Tanner Hunsaker wasn’t at the shop when the floodwaters hit, but he arrived soon after to find the aftermath: mud, debris, floating cars, and signs that first responders had been working to rescue people trapped nearby.
“It was a lot of evidence of rescue attempts. There were a lot of first responders walking around, and just total chaos,” Hunsaker said.
The interior of Topo Joe’s was gutted. But Hunsaker said the response from the Globe community, from businesses large and small to friends and family, is what kept him from walking away.
“This community did really show its colors. It’s really just their inspiration, their encouragement to continue to fight for it, is really what led to us rebuilding,” he said.
Rather than simply restoring what was lost, Hunsaker used the total rebuild as a chance to reimagine the space, deciding to expand and add a new coffee bar rather than settle for reopening the shop as it was.
“When the whole place was completely empty, you might as well … At that time, you have the opportunity to rethink, reimagine, and then pick and choose which way to reinvest,” Hunsaker explained. “The other option is to just leave or give up or go home.”
City of Globe Community Development Director Tony Manfredi said helping business owners like Hunsaker navigate rebuilding has been a priority from day one. Immediately after the flood, the city eased permitting requirements for basic recovery work like drywall removal and drying out buildings.
“It’s important to remember when the event hit us, we conceded to a lot of permitting requirements to help escalate recovery,” Manfredi said.
A year later, as businesses move into more substantial remodeling and redevelopment, the city now offers pre-development meetings to help owners understand what’s required before they start.
“We do have to abide by code, and particularly after we experience a disaster like we do, this is a time that we take lessons learned, and we look at what we can do better,” Manfredi said, noting the push extends to infrastructure, commercial buildings and residences alike.
He added that stricter building standards also help with insurance requirements, accessibility and long-term durability, with less possibility of damage when a disaster does hit.
Manfredi acknowledged not every business has recovered as quickly, pointing to storefronts across the street still working through a longer rebuilding process. But he said each reinvestment, like Topo Joe’s expansion, matters for the whole community.
Hunsaker’s outlook remains forward-looking even after everything the last year has brought.
“You’re used to going to work every day, and when this happens … you don’t have your job, per se, what you’re used to doing every day, but you still need to work,” he said. “So you just flip modes and work in every way you possibly can to correct it, to make it straight.”
FEMA: Flooding not deemed a ‘major disaster’
Floodwaters turned downtown Globe into a river last September. Three people died, and 1,000 floating propane tanks caused a major hazardous materials emergency. Gov. Katie Hobbs initially declared a state of emergency in Sept. 2025 and requested the Federal Major Disaster Declaration a month later.
FEMA denied Arizona’s first request for federal funding in Dec. 2025. The state issued an appeal and was denied a second time in July 2026, with FEMA concluding that the flooding was “not of such severity and magnitude that warrants a major disaster declaration,” according to the agency’s determination cited by the city.
Globe and Miami officials said the decision meant communities would have to keep rebuilding without the additional federal share they hoped would help cover recovery costs.
Mayor Gameros previously told Arizona’s Family that the final damage assessment for the devastating fall floods was around $96 million.
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