- [Tony] In the Sonoran Desert's high country,
Mount Lemmon Summeraven
is going through an economic dry spell
dealing with one crisis after the next.
- 2020 has been horrible.
- [Tony] Jennifer Zimmerman's roots here,
date back to the 1930s when her grandfather visited
and then opened businesses on Mount Lemmon.
She works at three companies in Summerhaven.
- Besides the COVID,
the businesses were shut down for a month during COVID
the restaurants were.
And then the fire came and basically everyone was evacuated.
And so the restaurant, none of the businesses
have been opened for a month and a half.
So 2020 needs to just be done.
- [Tony] Lightning started the Bighorn Fire in early June.
It ravaged the area for weeks
consuming more than a 100,000 acres
in the Coronado National Forest,
then getting close to Summerhaven.
- The fire is actually just in the forest
where it should have been all this time.
The firefighters did a miraculous job
on how they directed the fire.
It did get to the station and it burned the hill
where the old Bullock Fire was.
And so that whole hillside is burned.
And that's really only the horrible part where you can see
it's not anywhere near the businesses.
We have 350 acres of private deeded land,
and that's where Summerhaven is.
That's where the Donut Hole is.
- [Tony] Because the village was spared
and the road leading up to it is still accessible,
Zimmerman and other merchants are upset
that the county is allowing residents, employees,
and cabin renters to Summerhaven, but not day visitors,
the financial lifeline of the community.
- Entering Summerhaven should not be an issue.
You know, there is 77 parking spaces
and people can park on certain roads.
But as of right now the businesses are dying
and we really need this road open,
so that we can hopefully survive something
for the year of 2020.
And that's the only way it's going to happen for us.
- [Tony] 13 Companies
comprised the Mount Lemmon Business Economic Association,
and they employ dozens of workers.
They include the Mount Lemmon Hotel,
which is under construction and more long time staples,
such as Mount Lemmon, Ski Valley and Restaurants.
- There's a lot of employees who wanna come to work,
these people wanna work, they wanna get off unemployment.
- [Tony] While the Coronado National Forest is responsible
for the land around Summerhaven,
the village is part of Pima County,
which is in charge of the road.
The Sheriff's department says the drive is not safe
to visitors due to fire damaged guard rails in some areas.
And the county's department of transportation is responsible
for making fixes.
County supervisor's Steve Christy represents the area.
He says the county is trying to get a contractor
for the guard rail work.
- The biggest issue is trying to find a contractor
who is available that can do the work
and do the work properly.
- It is open for residents and for employees,
which they say, if it's safe for them,
why would it not be safe for visitors?
- Well, because of the volume of visitors
that would wanna go up there.
Secondly, the employees and the residents,
they know all the turns and twists of that road,
whereas, you have someone who's not familiar with it,
it could cause obviously some significant injury
or even worse if those guard rails are in place
and there's some tragedy there.
Yes, there's a huge liability exposure on the county's part
and the County is very well aware of that.
- [Tony] Christy says the county
is not taking the situation lightly.
- At this point, we don't have a real good sense
of when those contractors will be available
and how long it will take them to do it,
so, it is very frustrating.
We all recognize the importance of getting that road open.
I like to say this as a former business owner,
I know what that feels like
in very difficult times over the years,
I know the necessity of trying to get
these things solved.
- [Tony] Currently the forest service plans
to reopen the land around Summerhaven on November 1st.ú
Christy hopes road repairs will happen much sooner.
However, there are also fears
about another potential problem.
Landslides triggered by Monsoon storms.
Fortunately, in this case, the debris stayed in a wash.
- One time a sprinkle,
and then one time a decent rain with nothing.
And the decent rain is when the ash came down
in Nora Valley,
but I mean, you could drive to Casa Grande
and get stuck in a (mumbles) or whatever.
One of those dust storms.
This is part of life.
If you see that it's gonna be a really rainy day,
then don't venture up to the mountain
if you're afraid to drive.
But there are no trees that are on fire crossing the road.
You just have to be cautious.
- [Tony] Meantime on Facebook,
Mount Lemmon merchants are asking residents
to contact Pima County supervisors
about reopening the road to visitors.
Zimmerman says as a temporary measure,
the county could place orange cones
to signal where repairs are underway
or use personnel to direct traffic.
- It's not a whole line of the guard rail
it's two feet here, three feet there,
and they can have the construction companies
flag them around, they can do that.
In May of 2011, they actually shut the forest down
and kept the road open.
And it happened during, I think it was stage two
because the forest was getting ready to burn up again
and they did it.
And so I don't understand why they can't do it again.
- Did you ever imagined
you could be in such a trying situation first the pandemic
and now a major fire in that area.
- No, someone said when do we get the locus!
So this is really a very strange and difficult time,
but we're up to the task to solve the issues
and to address the problems and make things right
and get back to normal as soon as we can.