Mohave Daily NewsTUCSON (AP) — An unusual amount of rain that ravaged parts of southern Arizona also knocked down 60 feet of the rebar-reinforced steel fence that divides the U.S. and Mexico.
The storms began Friday in Sonora, Mexico, and resumed Saturday night until Sunday morning, when debris from the Mexican side of the border traveled through a wash and piled up against the border fence. The fence, just west of the Nogales-Mariposa Port of Entry near Interstate 19, stood between 18 and 26 feet high and extended at least 7 feet underground.
Border agents were alerted not long after the wall fell.
“Resources have been deployed to the area until the fence is repaired. Our technology assets such as cameras are also able to assist us,” U.S. Border Patrol spokeswoman Nicole Ballistrea said. “Contractors have assessed the damaged section of the fence and are developing a plan to initiate repairs.”
The fence was built in 2011. It is constantly monitored by agents because smugglers and others who attempt to cross illegally routinely try to breach or knock down parts of it.
“It had a lot of water behind it, and it just pushed the fence straight down,” said John Hays, floodplain coordinator for the Santa Cruz County Flood Control District. “If you’re fencing is tight enough to catch debris, it basically becomes a dam. It’s not meant to withstand those loads of water.”
Hays said the fence appears to have floodgates, but they did not open.
The debris and water that made its way through the fence also crept into a Nogales, Arizona, neighborhood, flooding houses and business with up to 3 feet of water, Hays said.
Hays said officials do not yet have a damage cost estimate.
No problem….. Obama has a nephew who just happens to be a fencing contractor, and he’ll fix it just like new for $162 Billion.
Can’t spare any expense when it comes to securing our border.
Yea, I’m sure the Border Agents will be deployed to the area until the fence is secured. Meaning they will bring their desk, chair, pens and forms and start processing the illegals coming across right there because now that the media has alerted everyone about it, the cartels will know and will send the invaders to that area to take advantage of the situation. Never let a good crisis go to waste, right?
the fact that this border never got a REAL barrier since the border was determined should tell us a lot about how complicit our government has been ever since that day