Two local governing bodies met on a late November day, Tuesday the 28th, and each was given an update on a pair of important projects – the new Upper Pinal Creek Bridge (also known as Connie’s Bridge) in Globe and a countywide flood mapping enterprise.

Connie’s Bridge

Tuesday evening the Globe City Council was briefed on the progress of the Connie’s Bridge project, which will replace the current bridge across Pinal Creek. Representatives of the project contractor, Meridian Engineering Company, in a “30,000-foot overview of where we are right now,” reported that the abutments, pier and bridge have been poured; gabion baskets to combat erosion were being installed; and work on the bridge deck would begin soon. The representatives said Meridian (a contractor with offices in Tucson, New Mexico and Oklahoma) has also prepared to handle small water flows by diverting all water to the center pier. They will be meeting with Arizona Eastern Railway on December 6 to discuss the railroad’s scope of work (the train crossing is being moved as part of the project). “It’ll get pretty busy here in the next couple of weeks,” said Meridian’s Eduardo Montano, general superintendent. He added that all of the material was on site and there had been no recent delays, though weather had pushed back the original timeline to finish the new bridge. Montano said they had lost approximately 26 weather days. “Ideally we’re trying to get done by the end of January,” he added. “The hardest part is finding qualified people right now.”

Gila County flood mapping

The Gila County Board of Supervisors met that Tuesday morning, and heard the latest on an endeavor to improve floodplain maps through improved technology and new studies.

County Floodplain Administrator Darde de Roulhac, who presented the update, said some of the current maps “are not very good. They were done with somewhat inaccurate topography to depict the flood hazard areas. A lot of them were done in the early 80s and haven’t been updated.”

That will be changing thanks to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, who has been helping Gila County tackle flood mapping issues since 2017. The first step was delivering LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) technology to the county that year. In 2020 FEMA gave the project another boost with Base Level Engineering (BLE) to update non-model-backed floodplains. Since last year, the agency has been updating existing studies and performing BLE in unstudied parts of the county. Through BLE, 815 stream miles currently unmapped by FEMA are slated for study. “It’s a lot of new information we can provide our residents to help them protect themselves,” said Roulhac. “They’re using updated methodology to get a better handle on the actual 100-year flows that are coming through these washes. With the LiDAR, now they can come back and represent the real situation as it is now; the state of the rivers and so on.” He added that LiDAR allowed for easier and cheaper data collection than ground surveys.

The technical data and preliminary maps are scheduled for delivery in May 2025. Updated official flood insurance rate maps will follow in a future phase. Throughout the county, existing hydraulic studies will be revisited. In southern Gila County, these include Dripping Springs Wash, Bloody Tanks Wash, Pinto Creek around Roosevelt, the Gila River near Hayden/Winkelman, Pinal Creek around Wheatfields, nine waterways around Globe and a dozen around Tonto Basin. The project is being funded by FEMA, with no match required from the county.

Roulhac said municipalities also have a seat at the table in this process. “All the cities and towns were involved in the meetings with FEMA to determine their needs, and they are all going to be part of these new maps. They’ll receive all the information we receive.”