Deadly New Mexico flood damaged at least 200 homes, number could rise as officials survey aftermath
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham was among the officials who took an aerial tour of Ruidoso and the surrounding area as they looked to bolster their case for more federal assistance for the community, which has been battered over the past year by wildfires and repeated flooding.
The governor said the state has received partial approval for a federal emergency declaration, freeing up personnel to help with search and rescue efforts and incident management. She called it the first step, saying Ruidoso will need much more.
'We will continue working with the federal government for every dollar and resource necessary to help this resilient community fully recover from these devastating floods,' she said.
An intense bout of monsoon rains set the disaster in motion Tuesday afternoon. Water rushed from the surrounding mountainside, overwhelming the Rio Ruidoso and taking with it a man and two children who had been camping at a riverside RV park. Their bodies were found downstream. One person is still unaccounted for.
Lujan Grisham expressed her condolences and wished a speedy recovery for the parents of the 4-year-old girl and 7-year-old boy who were killed. She said it will be an emotional journey.
'There are no words that can take away that devastation,' she said. 'We are truly heartsick.'
Congresswoman Melanie Stansbury, whose district includes Ruidoso and surrounding Lincoln County, told reporters more rain is coming and that residents remain at risk. She urged people to follow emergency orders, saying 'we cannot lose another life.'
Broken tree limbs, twisted metal, crumpled cars and muddy debris remain as crews work to clear roads and culverts wrecked by the flooding.
Tracy Haragan, a lifelong Ruidoso resident on the verge of retirement, watched from his home as a surging river carried away the contents of nine nearby residences.
'You watched everything they owned, everything they had – everything went down,' he said.
A popular summer retreat, Ruidoso is no stranger to tragedy. It has spent a year rebuilding following destructive wildfires last summer and the flooding that followed.
This time, the floodwaters went even higher, with the Rio Ruidoso rising more than six metres on Tuesday to set a record. Officials said the area received about nine centimetres of rain over the South Fork burn scar in just an hour and a half.
'It is such a great town, it just takes a tail-whipping every once in a while,' Haragan said. 'We always survive.'
The river runs thick with sediment that can settle and raise future water levels. Stansbury said already-promised federal funding to remove silt from the riverbed would help mitigate future flooding, but that the community would need continued help for the next decade after suffering successive catastrophes.
Lujan Grisham said the federal government likely will advance US$15-million – from the Department of Agriculture and the Federal Emergency Management Agency – to jumpstart recovery efforts. That amount could climb to more than US$100-million in the coming months as Ruidoso tries to rebuild and mitigate future floods.
The governor said officials need to rethink how funding is doled out to reduce the risks of future flooding, in efforts that might restore watersheds and forests.
Ruidoso has also recently requested US$100-million in federal aid to convert flood-prone private land to public property after successive years of violent flooding.
The mayor emphasized Thursday that the flood damage was far greater than he and others had realized, highlighting damage to water lines and distribution points for potable drinking water.
'Things have changed,' Crawford said. 'There was a lot more damage than what we had assumed and what we thought in the beginning. ... We've had to take a step back to move forward.'
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