A flash flood that left a muddy mess at a popular shopping and dining development in the heart of Sedona couldn't have come at a worse time.
The Tlaquepaque Arts & Crafts Village holds an annual festival today to celebrate Mexican Independence Day. Organizers say that despite Thursday's rain, the festival that features mariachi singers, flamenco dancers, crafts and artist demonstrations will go on as it has for more than 30 years.
"We'll be ready," said Larry Berkowitz of the Inner Eye Gallery, which sustained minor damage.
"This was just a really freakish kind of flooding and muddy," he said as the cleanup continued Friday. "But to watch these guys work, the Tlaquepaque people were absolutely terrific, with a smile."
More than 40 specialty shops, art galleries and restaurants are housed in the shopping center modeled after a traditional Mexican village.
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Runoff from a midafternoon storm Thursday flooded a wash that runs near the village. Boulders washed into the streets, and some pavement eroded.
Crews were working to clear away as much as 8 inches of mud and remove vehicles that floated around like beach balls, some overturning in the floodwaters.
One vehicle crashed through a wall and into the village's courtyard, knocking over a bronze elk statue, said Sedona Fire District spokesman Gary Johnson.
Nancy Scagnelli, owner of a pottery shop called Esteban's, said most of the stores were closed Friday but would reopen today.
A couple of customers were in Scagnelli's shop Thursday when it started raining, and one of her employees offered an umbrella to a Canadian man so he could pull up the car for his companion.
"By the time he walked out there, it (the car) was under water," she said.
She said the man tried to climb out the back window after the car wouldn't start, but he had to be rescued by firefighters. Scagnelli said the couple stayed to help her clean up the shop, and it's "starting to look pretty good."
"We've got crews in here, powerhosing, backhoes moving mud," she said. "It was quite a disaster. There was a lot of mud."
At the Isadora Handweaving Gallery, next door to the Inner Eye, workers had to pump out more than 200 gallons of water and were pulling up the carpet, Berkowitz said. Customers trudged through the mud to visit shops that were open and even called offering to help get rid of the mess, he said.
Fire District spokesman Johnson was greeted at the flooded area Friday morning by clear, blue skies, and there was just a trickle of water in the wash nearby. But he said he was hesitant to walk in some areas, believing the mud would swallow his 8-inch boots.
"It's like a bunch of ants," he said. "You got a bunch of folks running around, picking up the mud, dump trucks are hauling it off, a lot of people with brooms, shovels."
Although firefighters had to rescue several people from their vehicles, no injuries were reported from the flooding. Firefighters also broke a window in a local home to rescue people who were trapped there, Johnson said.
Residents and tourists had little time to react to a flash-flood warning the National Weather Service issued at 2:08 p.m. The first reports of rising water and flooding came in about 12 minutes later.
"One minute you're out there, it's dry," Johnson said. "The next minute, you're soaking wet. As quick as it came is as quick as it went."
Friday's forecast called for a 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms before 11 p.m.
