Oak Creek flooding triggers evacuations and rescues in Sedona

Sedona started evacuations early today. Several neighborhoods ordered to higher ground as the Oak Creek overflowed. Let's get to Jacob Luthie live from Sedona tonight with the latest. Jacob, I can't help but seeing behind you. Wow, that is really going strong. Yeah, Brian, I've been hearing from people all throughout Sedona today. They've never seen anything like this. They've never one heard the river this loud. I'm not sure if it's getting picked up in my mic, but they've just never seen it flow the way that it's flowing today. Now I want to go ahead and point out these Halloween decorations right here. As you can see right below them, that is all debris. That is how high this creek bed came up today. Again, People have been all over this bridge taking pictures, taking video of this water because again, it's just not something you see. We're getting a heavy downpour of rain right now. So at any moment again, this creek bed could continue to rise. But I also want to show you video posted by the Sedona Fire District showing just how quickly that this creek water rose this morning. The district called in extra crews to handle a surge in rescues and urged anyone in danger to get to higher ground as well as to call 911. People I spoke They say they received emergency alerts around 8 a.m. A couple visiting from Maine tell me that a road that they had driven on the night before was completely underwater when they woke up the next morning. Residents say that emergency crews quickly moved in, closing off streets and helping people get to safety. 100 yards from the, 150 yards from where we were staying, the water was there, and it rose. From the time we first saw it, the time we went back and packed up the car, it had risen about 10 feet, you know, up the road. It was coming up the road as we left. The park is just one big water puddle, and I've never seen it that full. Like I said, I've seen the river get pretty high and roar and stuff, but not really come up over the banks to the point that it's hitting the houses. So this was a... A rarity. That's for sure. And for those who are being evacuated or if you've gotten that evacuation order, that will be at Red Rock High School here in Sedona. We were there earlier today. That's where we spoke to those individuals. There were some people in there getting food or maybe just waiting this rain out, trying to hopefully have this water subside. Brian. Jacob, real quick. Does it seem like the water is still rising or going down? Can you tell? It's definitely gone down, as I mentioned about the Halloween decorations, right? That shows how high that this water came up recently, that we've been seeing it going down just a little bit. But like I said, the rain picks up, and all of a sudden that water seems to be pushing a lot faster than it was maybe even an hour ago. So things change by the minute out here. And, of course, we'll keep people updated both here as well as online at fox10phoenix.com. All right, Jacob, thank you for the update tonight.