(Photo by Stina Sieg - KJZZ)

The mail looks dry, but a postal box is surrounded by mud left by the storm at 27th Avenue and Dobbins on Monday.

(Photo by Stina Sieg - KJZZ)

Water rushes through an irrigation ditch in South Phoenix on Monday.

The sun has poked through the clouds this afternoon, but more than five inches of rain fell over parts of the Valley today, according to the National Weather Service. That’s a single day record. Schools were closed and so were roads, businesses and state government offices. And an area of South Phoenix is still recovering from flooding last month.

The rain’s gone for now, but several streets are still closed. Many of the ones that that are open again are under a thick layer of mud. Earlier today, brown floodwater was rushing into a ditch around 23rd and Dobbins avenues. There were flies everywhere. Ellen Clark, who lives nearby, couldn’t get to work today, so she was walking her dog around the neighborhood. She said today’s flooding was comparable to the flooding that occurred late last month. But Clark said some of her neighbors were treating today kind of like a holiday. 

"The folks in our neighborhood — the kids were off of school," Clark said. "I live right next to a park that was flooded, and they go all of their swimming gear, innertubes, floaties and they had a great time."

Others in the area weren’t taking things so lightly. Cynthia Aguirre and her husband were busy trying to find sandbags to help protect their home against the floodwater. Aguirre said there’s half an inch of water in her living room right now. She said she first realized something was wrong at 2 a.m.

"I heard a lightning storm, so I got scared, I grabbed the baby, and we slept with her," Aguirre said. "It was flooded already."

Sunlight’s flooding Aguirre’s home now, belying the damage that mother nature did overnight. Aguirre and her family will clean up and hope to start over, but there’s more rain in the forecast.