Flood Danger Builds in Arizona Valleys : Rain: Up to 3,600 may have to evacuate from path of Gila River. Agriculture losses could reach $100 million.

Henry Ray, 80, who was moving from his native Arkansas to California 31 years ago when he decided instead to pull off the road and settle down here, says he’s not afraid of “a little” water.

But the amount of water that is expected to rush down the normally dry Gila River just north of Ray’s ancient mobile home is more than a little.

The people who know about these things say the Gila could jump its banks and fan out for up to three miles. If so, Ray figures he will have to seek higher ground even if it means leaving behind his turkeys, automobile parts and other junk-like collectibles.

“I don’t want to leave,” Ray said Friday. “But it’s not smart not to show respect for a river when it gets angry like this.”

By the time the river is expected to crest next week, up to 3,600 residents along the 90 miles of valleys from the Painted Rock Dam to the Colorado River west of Yuma may have to evacuate, as authorities have already urged.

Potential agricultural losses in the nation’s second-largest vegetable-growing area could reach $100 million. Tens of thousands of acres may be rendered too soggy for cultivation for an additional year. Authorities anticipate that this will be the worst flooding in Arizona in 60 years.

The agony for farmers and others in the Mohawk, Dome and North Gila valleys downstream from the dam is that they have only limited ability to minimize the damage.

On Friday, lettuce growers were frantically trying to salvage their crops by putting on larger crews and harvesting lettuce up to a week earlier than normal. Word spread through the fields that the price of lettuce had zoomed from $3 a box to $20 a box in anticipation of a shortage.

“We’re picking as fast as we can,” said Jesse Garcia, a labor contractor for Desert Packing Co. “I think we’ll make it, but you can’t be sure. If we get flooded or if the road gets washed out . . . we’re going to lose big time.”

The year’s torrential rains have pushed the reservoir behind the Painted Rock Dam to 112% of capacity. Water has been cascading down the earthen dam’s spillway and out to the Gila River for a week.

In some spots close to the dam, the Gila is now three-quarters of a mile wide and 40 feet deep. Four bridges have been washed out and four more are expected to go within days.

As of Friday, thousands of acres of crops have been flooded and thousands of head of cattle are being taken to high ground. Dikes and levees are being reinforced and pumping is nonstop.

“Snowbirds,” winter residents in recreational vehicles who arrive from cold-weather states, have been warned to hit the road for their own good. The Yuma County sheriff’s “mounted posse”--deputies in four-wheel-drive vehicles--and units of the Arizona National Guard are going door to door with dire warnings.

“It’s been a hell of a community effort,” said Sheriff Ralph Ogden, a tall, barrel-chested man who sports a gray mustache. “You’ve got people who don’t even like each other pitching in and fighting this thing together.”

The incongruity of waiting for disaster to strike while enjoying a beautiful winter day--with blue skies, only wispy clouds, a gentle breeze and temperatures reaching the low 70s--was not lost on those in peril.

“I guess we’re lucky,” said Tom Rouse, principal and superintendent of the 260-student Mohawk Valley School. “Where else can you get a week’s notice that you’re going to be flooded? We’re over the panic, now we’re just trying to shore up.”

Classes have been canceled all week, and workmen have barricaded the school with sandbags. The school, a mile north of the Gila, is surrounded by lettuce fields, the area’s major cash crop.

“Everyone is getting out, but there’s no escaping the damage this flood is going to do,” Rouse said. “Everybody is going to be hurt. Farmers, farm workers, people in related fields. Wait until you people in Los Angeles are paying $2 for a head of lettuce.”

The 155-foot-tall Painted Rock Dam, which was built in 1959 and has never before had water over the spillway, provides a flood-control reservoir for a huge area of Arizona, New Mexico and Mexico. On Jan. 5, the reservoir was a mud flat; by Jan. 10, up to 186,000 cubic feet of water per second was pouring in.

As runoff, some from mountain snowpacks, continues to rush in, the volume of water over the spillway will increase, and downstream flooding will worsen.

“All that snow will be great for the skiers in Arizona and western New Mexico,” said Ogden from his command post in Wellton, five miles to the west. “But it’s all heading our way after it melts.”

The sudden emergence of the Gila River as a threat to life and property has taught even longtime residents a lesson.

“A lot of desert rivers are dry,” said Clyde Gould, manager of the Wellton-Mohawk Irrigation & Drainage District. “But when they begin to run, you (had) better get out of the way.”

Many residents are taking the flood warnings stoically.

“I’ll go when my feet start getting wet,” said Dallas Moser, who runs Mosers General Store here.

Moser has made one concession, though: He figures the electricity will go out when the Gila comes calling, so he has put the ice cream on sale at half-price.

Kevin and Danielle Gill said their GMC pickup is high enough off the ground to give them an advantage. Kevin, a foreman at an alfalfa farm, says real Mohawk Valley residents are not scared.

The Gills will wait until the last moment before taking their 11-month-old son, Kevin Jr., to safety. “He’ll be able to say he lived through the flood of 1993,” said the father.

In what is called Operation Mohawk, the Arizona National Guard has set up three camps, including medical services and mess tents, to accommodate evacuees who do not have relatives to stay with and cannot afford motels.

Arizona Gov. Fife Symington arrived by helicopter Thursday at one of the camps in Roll, 50 miles west of the Painted Rock Dam.

National Guard Lt. Bobby Graziani, a bartender in civilian life, said some residents, particularly the elderly, are reluctant to leave when they realize that the Army cannot move all their possessions.

“We had one woman in her 80s who didn’t want to leave without her refrigerator,” he said. “We finally convinced her.”

Others required less persuasion.

Jeannie Coulter said the last few days have been “a mad rush against time. Yesterday the roads were packed with everybody getting out.”

But she predicts that Mohawk Valley residents will rebound, even if they have to return to soggy homes and fields. “We’re pioneers and survivors,” she said. “Our roots go deep here. We’re going to stick it out.”

LOCAL STORM: Heavy rain is possible through today in the Southland. B1