Construction
Komatsu Equipment Co
Mechanic General
CORT
WAREHOUSE/DRIVER General
CORT
Warehouse Supervisor Health Care
Rio Salado College
PA's/Online Instructors Education
Assessment Technology, Inc
Social Studies Content Writer

A low brick wall was all that stood between Judy Shivack and inundation last summer when the normally dry Rillito River filled with raging floodwaters.

Shivack lives in the River View Condominiums on North Country Club Road, and the complex backs up to the Rillito.

Last summer, the river actually topped its bank, but was held back by a 3-to-4-foot-high brick wall built atop a bank protection system maintained by Pima County Flood Control.

Now that wall is cracked, and Shivack worries that it won't withstand another flood.

"All it takes is one bad monsoon season, and it's gone," she said.

Shivack said she has called county Flood Control repeatedly and no one has come out to inspect the wall or the bank protection underneath it.

Deputy Director Chris Cawein of Pima County Flood Control says the county is in the middle of a systemwide analysis of bank protection systems and other flood-control measures to find out what was damaged and what needs repairs.

"We're looking at the entire Rillito system," he said. "It has to be a systemwide thing."

The county has $8 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for bank protection.

"We're hoping to get a lot done before the summer," he said.

Cawein said he didn't know what happened to Shivack's previous calls; the first complaint from her he has logged is from Feb. 28.

He said someone from Flood Control would inspect the site soon.

However, the county is responsible only for public structures. If the wall was built by a private party, that person would be responsible for maintaining it.

Erica Meltzer