Somewhere between 150 and 200 houses took on water in Rimrock and Lake Montezuma, two small Verde Valley communities in central Arizona, as heavy rain over Halloween weekend sent Wet Beaver Creek over its banks. The National Weather Service put the estimate on the damage, and it covers homes hit on Sunday, Nov. 1, with the flood warning still running into Monday.
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The two communities lie along Wet Beaver Creek, with Interstate 17 running close by, and the same warning that gave the home estimate also closed roads and flagged State Route 179 and the interstate as flood-prone. The figure is an estimate, and it came from the weather service rather than from a county damage tally, which is worth keeping in mind as repair and insurance counts start to arrive.
The creek system behind the flooding
The National Weather Service office in Flagstaff issued a flood warning for Wet Beaver Creek and Dry Beaver Creek at 7:58 a.m. on Monday, Nov. 2, valid until 2:30 p.m. It said structures were flooded, roads were closed and impassable, and that 150 to 200 homes had been reported affected in the Lake Montezuma and Rimrock areas. At 7:56 a.m., emergency managers measured water 6 feet below the Montezuma Avenue bridge.
The warning listed nine named waterways feeding the problem, among them Grief Hill Wash, Rarick Canyon, Russell Wash, Walker Creek, Brady Canyon and Long Canyon. It also flagged Montezuma Castle National Monument, McGuireville, the Village of Oak Creek and Rimrock Airport among the places expected to flood, along with Interstate 17 between mile markers 290 and 317 and State Route 179 between markers 299 and 307.
Coconino County activated its Emergency Operations Center as flooding closed major roads and led to evacuations, according to AccuWeather’s account of the weekend. The warning’s list of recreation sites at risk, including Wet Beaver Creek Campground and the Bell Crossing swimming hole known as The Crack, shows how much of the corridor is used by visitors as well as residents, and the instruction to residents was blunt: move to higher ground now and do not drive on flooded roads.
Rain totals that loaded the watershed
AccuWeather’s Brian Lada tied the flooding to an atmospheric river that crossed the Southwest from Oct. 31 to Nov. 1, and his account for Yahoo News carries the 150-to-200 figure with attribution to the weather service. Totals ran 2 to 4 inches across much of the terrain north and east of Phoenix, and Crown King, about 90 miles northwest of the capital, logged 6.21 inches. Flagstaff, up the mountain from Rimrock, measured 3.37 inches on Nov. 1, the wettest Nov. 1 in records going back to 1898 and well past the prior mark of 1.53 inches from 1987.
The rain was not confined to one gauge. Jesse Ferrell, an AccuWeather meteorologist, counted 10 flood gauges in Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico that had set height records by Monday morning, and Oak Creek near Cornville was among the Arizona sites that passed a 1993 high.
Why Rimrock has been here before
Rimrock and Lake Montezuma are not strangers to the water. In March 2023, the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office warned of major flooding near Rimrock, Lake Montezuma and areas along Wet Beaver Creek, opened a shelter for residents who had nowhere else to go, and watched nearly every waterway in Yavapai and Gila counties run high. Some residents were returning to flooded houses within a day of that event.
A repeat within three years raises a practical question that the November figures cannot yet answer: how many of the 150 to 200 addresses were also hit in 2023. The warning gave no breakdown, and AccuWeather did not name an official who counted the homes, so the range remains an early estimate rather than a damage assessment.
The estimate also sits inside a larger regional flood event. Pima County sheriff’s deputies performed 16 water rescues by Sunday afternoon, and the Gila River near Solomon, in the eastern part of the state, rose to 26.86 feet and passed its 1983 record of 20.8 feet. The Rimrock flooding belongs to the same two-day soaking, yet it played out in a creek watershed hundreds of miles from the Gila Valley, with its own warnings and its own set of closed roads.
Deaths, rescues and what comes next
The region’s casualty reports ran elsewhere. The City of Flagstaff reported a man missing after he lost his footing near fast-moving water and was not seen resurfacing, and in Nevada, FOX5 in Las Vegas reported that a person pulled from a flooded Henderson wash on Friday died at a hospital. Neither case involved the Verde Valley homes.
Forecasters see more water ahead. AccuWeather’s winter outlook for 2026-2027 describes an El Niño that could reshape snow and cold across the country, and Lake Powell and Lake Mead have both climbed after the late-October storms. For Rimrock and Lake Montezuma, the near-term test is whether local damage surveys convert the weather service estimate into a verified count.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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