PHOENIX — Sunday marks 10 years since the historic flooding on I-10 in west Phoenix. Vehicles and drivers were left stranded as the flood waters quickly rose and it took days for the Valley to dry out.
To this date, it is the highest daily total rainfall that's ever fallen at the official gauge at Sky Harbor Airport.
The 2014 storm dumped 3.30 inches of rainfall onto Phoenix in one day, almost double the normal rainfall in a whole season.
The flood changed how Maricopa County Flood Control handled weather events.
"Being able to plan sooner and faster," Dan Henz with Maricopa County Flood Control said. "We have a lot of our structures that we didn't realize, we know that they're smaller they can fill quickly. Now we know how to mobilize quicker and how to start having communications."
Arizona was in monsoon season and it was anything but an ordinary storm. Henz remembers knowing the day before that things could take a turn for the worst.
"Gave us a good idea that all the ingredients were coming together for a big event," Henz said.
Moisture from Tropical Storm Norbert helped bring hours of rain overnight. The Arizona highways couldn't keep up.
"I don't want to say it was chaos but everyone was doing their job, or just doing the best we would with what we had at the time," Henz said.
I-10 flooded in a way that Arizona has never seen before... or since. Drivers abandoned their cars, which left I-10 essentially a flooded parking lot.
"My car was sinking, sinking, like floating. I got freaked out because I'm six months pregnant. So I got freaked out. I want to get out and I can't get out because of the door. I can't open it," one resident told 12News in 2014.
It's now known as "The Storm of the Century."
Since then, the Maricopa County Flood District has made a few changes.
"We've installed quite a few new gages. Our whole system has grown by 25 percent since then," Henz said.
It's not likely something the area will see again but will not soon be forgotten by those who lived through it.
Arizona Weather
Arizona has seen its fair share of severe weather. Here is a compilation of videos from various storms across the Grand Canyon state.