Skies were clearing, but the risk of flooding remained in parts of the southwestern United States after powerful downpours sent huge amounts of water onto the usually dry landscape, forcing hundreds of people to evacuate and keeping swift water rescue teams busy.
Officials said cleanup and repair efforts could take weeks. One person died in floodwaters and police suspect a second death was caused by the weather.
The National Weather Service said Monday that isolated showers were still possible in the Four Corners region – where New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Utah meet – as the phenomenon fueled by warming Pacific waters known as El Niño disrupts weather conditions.
Damage was widespread in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, a town of about 2,000 people. Officials feared the San Juan River running through it would reach a level that nearly wiped out the city in 1911. The river reached 16.81 feet (5.1 meters) on Sunday — a foot lower than the historic level — flooding downtown streets before receding Monday, the weather service said.
An entire house was lifted off its foundation and floated down the river before crashing onto a pedestrian bridge. A section of a highway bridge west of town collapsed beneath raging waters, said Vicki Shaffer, a spokeswoman for the Archuleta County Sheriff’s Office.
Dozens of people were rescued across the region, some by helicopter. Shaffer said first responders were looking for people who might be stranded.
“This will continue, as it did last week, until we are sure that everyone who was trapped by the floodwaters has been rescued,” she said.
The Colorado Department of Transportation reopened several closed bridges and roads Monday evening. Shaffer said evacuation orders remained in effect, although she did not know exactly how many people were affected.
Pagosa Springs had just lifted an evacuation order following a previous storm, only to reimpose it on Saturday.
More than 20 trillion gallons of rain fell on the Four Corners states and Nevada over the past two weeks, according to calculations by Ryan Maue, former chief scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
As Election Day approaches, officials in Colorado and Utah have implemented alternative voting plans for evacuated or stranded residents.
Utah announced Monday that residents in hard-hit San Juan County would be allowed to vote electronically because some of them may not be able to get to polling places.
New rivers rise, forcing evacuations
Evacuations were ordered along New Mexico’s San Juan River, which authorities warned continued to rise and could peak Tuesday through Wednesday. The village of Chama, New Mexico, was also evacuated and isolated by road closures.
Residents were forced to leave their homes along the Animas River in southwest Colorado, where Durango Police Chief Brice Current said authorities were checking on Monday those who had survived flooding in their homes.
“There are still a lot of people stuck,” Current said.
Willow Bradner and her family have been staying in a hotel since their Durango home was flooded over the weekend.
“We went from ‘we’re going to be safe’ to ‘pack a backpack’ in 45 minutes,” she recalls. His basement is now full of water and the house is surrounded by more than 60 centimeters of mud.
On Monday, Greg Ewing was among about 200 community members who used excavators and skid steer loaders to remove mud in the Bradner neighborhood. “That’s the cool thing about Durango. It’s a really strong community. Everyone comes together,” Ewing said.
Dry Arizona creek beds transformed into raging torrents
Record rainfall was reported across Arizona, including 7.3 inches (18.5 centimeters) over two days in Workman Creek, a wilderness area near Phoenix.
Flagstaff totaled 5.15 inches (13 centimeters) over two days, contributing to the wettest November 1 on record. The city typically sees fewer than a handful of days a year where it rains more than an inch, said meteorologist Jennifer Tate of the NWS Weather Prediction Center.
“What really struck me was that it wasn’t localized. It was a very large system that brought a lot of rain to many places,” Tate said.
A man was seen falling into floodwaters and rushing into a drainage tunnel in Flagstaff, where rain fell almost non-stop on Sunday. Police said the body of Williams Singavarapu, 73, of New York, was discovered Monday about 15 blocks from where he went missing.
A second man was found dead in a drainage area Monday, Flagstaff police said, adding it appeared to be weather-related, pending an official determination on the cause of death.
In Sedona, floodwaters trapped several people in their homes and heavy rains washed out part of a highway.
Nearby in Camp Verde, Doug Michaels was preparing dinner at an RV park when he saw people evacuating as the water rose. He was able to get himself, his wife, his cat and his valuables to safety and raise his camper higher off the ground. But he added that others have had much worse situations.
“It’s devastating,” he said. “People lost their homes. The one lady doesn’t even know where her camper is. It sank in the river.”
Swift water rescues were also conducted in Tucson, where weather service meteorologist Aaron Hardin said “we’re getting two or three months of rain in a matter of days.”
Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs issued a statewide emergency declaration Monday after recently issuing an emergency for Navajo and Coconino counties. The governors of New Mexico and Colorado have asked President Donald Trump to declare a major disaster in order to receive federal financial aid.
Parts of southern Utah are flooded
Ryan Benally spent the weekend building earthen berms to divert floodwaters from his parents’ home on the Navajo Nation near Montezuma Creek, Utah. So far, the barriers have held, even though parts of their small cattle ranch were underwater.
Benally, an assistant professor at Utah State University, coordinates deliveries of bottled water, waterproof boots, toiletries and other supplies to shelters. Families back home were increasingly difficult to reach, he said, as access routes for some distant residents were destroyed.
Benally said his parents, both in their 60s, have lived in the area their entire lives and have never seen flooding this bad.
“These storms came one after the other,” Benally said. “It’s getting worse in ways that people here just weren’t prepared for.”
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AP reporter Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire; Sarah Raza in Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Savannah Peters in Santa Fe, New Mexico; Gregory Bull in Durango, Colo.; Ross D. Franklin in Camp Verde, Arizona; and Jessica Hill in Las Vegas contributed.
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