Flash flood hits hundreds of homes south of Las Cruces

VADO — Over 600 homes were damaged by flooding in a rural community 18 miles south of Las Cruces near the Texas state line Tuesday evening. The lower Rio Grande’s passage through Vado swelled, flooding neighborhoods, farms and roadways, as a slow-moving monsoon dropped more than 2 inches of rain over the region.

Search and rescue teams worked into the night to evacuate residents from homes in low-lying parts of the unincorporated community of over 3,000 people. The river surge flowed into houses and mobile homes, washed vehicles away and turned unpaved roads into rivers of mud.

Across the community, sections of key roads were closed Wednesday, with some residents relying on side roads, often unpaved, to navigate, even though some of those roads remained flooded or mired in mud. Residents were seen pumping floodwaters out of their houses, some expressing concern about contamination as livestock were left standing in water and muck.

Doña Ana County officials said 30 people checked into an emergency evacuation shelter set up at the local community center, and two people were transported to an area hospital with minor injuries. No deaths or major injuries were reported.

The county said 600 households temporarily lost power, but during a news conference Wednesday afternoon Amanda Bowen, the county’s emergency manager, said El Paso Electric had restored most if not all service.

“We’re still really trying to get our hands around exactly what is happening and how we best help so we don’t make things worse in the process,” Bowen told reporters outside the community center, where Red Cross and county emergency staff were on hand with sandbags and other supplies.

Multiple roads in the community were closed due to flooding or debris, and county work crews labored through the night to keep culverts and other passages clear of debris as stormwaters flowed from the upper watershed across Vado. Crews worked on a damaged culvert underneath Stern Drive, a frontage road along Interstate 10, which also saw minor flooding Tuesday night.

Multiple agencies responded Tuesday, including fire and swift water rescue teams from the county and Las Cruces, Doña Ana County deputies and New Mexico State Police, the Elephant Butte Irrigation District and the New Mexico National Guard.

On Wednesday, County Manager Scott Andrews said officials were assessing the estimated damage ahead of an emergency meeting Thursday, where county commissioners will consider a disaster declaration that could unlock state resources to aid in the recovery. Andrews said it was not clear whether the damages would meet the minimum threshold for disaster relief. Local residents were encouraged to call 211 with questions or to report damages; an online portal was being established and promoted via the county’s social media channels, as well.

Vado Speedway, a dirt racing track located close to the interstate, confirmed that its entire infield was flooded Wednesday, but General Manager Mike Garcia confirmed the park would be ready for a racing event scheduled for Saturday.

“We send out prayers for all those affected by the flooding yesterday,” Garcia told the Journal.

Neighborhood near arroyo swamped

Swannack Road, a residential street near Vado’s arroyo, was the scene of several rescues Tuesday night, with approximately 10 neighbors working in tandem with rescue teams.

On Wednesday afternoon, residents were digging mud from front walks and moving saturated belongings out into the sun.

Sweating into a shirt already streaked with mud, Leonardo Zamora helped family members whose house had been flooded prepare to move in with him temporarily.

“The good thing is, everybody’s fine,” he said. “The material things, we’ll figure out later.”

Tabitha Gonzales, who lives at a higher point on the road, said she and her family members were “sore and bruised” after helping lower-lying residents evacuate their homes and reach emergency services.

She said the storm began as an irregular sprinkle Tuesday that turned, by early evening, into a downpour. Summer monsoons, she said, “usually rain pretty hard for a little bit and then it will just stop; but this one kind of lasted for a couple of hours. Most of that water was probably coming down from the mountains, and so it just kept coming and coming and coming.”

Her cousin, Elijah Sanchez, a lifelong resident living in a trailer home next to the arroyo, said he had not seen the channel full since he was a child, while other Swannack Road residents said they had not seen a storm of this magnitude in nearly two decades.

Sanchez said he, Gonzales and other family members were drawn outside by the sound of roaring water. They then observed the water breach the embankment and begin to flow very quickly into neighboring yards.

Sanchez, home after completing U.S. Army basic training at Fort Bliss, said he moved from one home to the next, rescuing one dog, a neighbor recovering from a broken femur, and elderly and disabled residents.

Sanchez said water levels climbed quickly in yards, reaching waist level and almost to his chest in some parts of the neighborhood, causing him to almost lose his footing in the current.

The neighbor with a broken leg ultimately had to be delivered to a rescue crew via a rolling trash cart.

“There wasn’t much to it,” Sanchez said Wednesday. “It was just about getting my neighbors to safety.”