A century and a half ago, there was enough water in the Yuma stretch of the Colorado River to sink a steamboat:
On this date in 1854, the first steamer on the Colorado River, The Uncle Sam, sank at Pilot Knob.
Today, it’s pickups, stuck in the sand:
Yuma Station agents patrolling near the Colorado River saw an abandoned Jeep Cherokee parked near the Normandy barriers. Upon closer inspection, agents noticed a large part of the Normandy barriers had been cut. Nearby, several individuals were trying to free a Chevy pickup truck stuck in the Colorado River. As agents approached the truck, the individuals fled to Mexico. The truck contained 44 bundles of marijuana with a combined weight of 855 pounds, worth an estimated $427,500.
In Rival Rails the story of railroads in the southwest, it states that the first bridge over the Colorado at Yuma had a swing section so boats could go upstream. Here is a link to a Yuma heritage site that confirms the swing section (near the bottom of the page)http://www.yumaheritage.com/history.html
The page also says that before 1898 two such bridges had been washed away by floods also.