'Nobody could survive that': Family reconciles with death of man in Ruidoso flood

Benjamin Feagin had just bought a property tucked into the forest above Ruidoso, with unobstructed views of the Sierra Blanca mountains. There, the retired welder had planned to build cabins for his adult son and his family.

Eventually, the property would be dotted with cows, horses and chickens. Timmy Feagin said, for his father, it was “a little piece of heaven.”

In the meantime, the 64-year-old was living in an RV at the Riverview RV Park — feet away from the babbling Rio Ruidoso. On Tuesday, heavy rains turned the namesake river into a rushing wall of water and debris 20 feet high.

Timmy Feagin — having driven from his home in Las Cruces — found what was left of his father’s RV, mainly the chassis, 200 yards downstream, crumpled “as if it was a soda can,” he said.

“I was too in shock to still even understand ... I mean, you could just tell nobody could survive that, like, it’s impossible,” Feagin said in an interview Saturday. Benjamin Feagin’s body was recovered 2 miles from the RV Park on Tuesday night, near the bodies of a brother and sister, ages 7 and 4, who had also been swept away.

Timmy Feagin said he was taken aback by the sheer devastation left in the wake of the flood as they searched for the bodies.

“Actually having to visually witness these things and looking in the eyes of traumatized people that are hoping for the best but, based upon what we’re looking at, expecting the absolute worst-case scenario,” he said. “Unfortunately, for quite a few families and us, the worst-case scenario is what we ended up with.”

Officials have said more than 60 people were rescued and hundreds of homes were damaged by the floodwaters. On Saturday, the village of Ruidoso braced for more rain and possible flooding, while the sun shone and tourists packed the sidewalks and shops along Sudderth Drive. Just one block away and down an incline to the river, signs of last week’s floods were still visible in dried mud and debris, as well as rental lodgings and homes with visible damage and boarded-up doors and windows.

In RV and mobile home parks hit the hardest by the flash flood, like the Riverview, residents, friends and volunteers moved belongings from smashed houses, trailers and RVs, most bearing an “X” in orange spray paint. Benjamin Feagin‘s mangled black Ford truck, wrapped around a tree along Sudderth Drive, bore an X like the rest.

Village spokesperson Kerry Gladden said 10 people remained in a shelter established at Ruidoso Middle School. Early Saturday afternoon, the village briefly ran out of sandbags, with thousands more en route as officials prepared for thunderstorms arriving over Saturday night and Sunday.

A little after 4 p.m., residents moving out of trailer homes looked up as the first clap of thunder could be heard, and continued working as the river flowed gently nearby. Ruidoso Fire Chief Cade Hall issued a warning as skies darkened for volunteers working in hazard zones to be aware of their surroundings and move away from the river to higher ground immediately if a flash flood warning was issued.

Last Tuesday, it appeared little warning had come for those at Riverview RV Park.

According to an account from relatives on a GoFundMe, the Trotter family, from Texas, was hanging out in their RV after a day spent shopping and exploring the village. Without warning, according to relatives, the RV began to fill with water and a wall soon collapsed, pulling Stephanie Trotter and the two children, Sebastian, 7, and Charlotte, 4, into the river.

The GoFundMe states Sebastian Sr. dove into the rushing floodwaters after his family and was able to find his son and help him up a tree. Stephanie and Charlotte were carried farther downstream “until trees and debris hit and separated them,” according to the account.

Sebastian Sr. and his wife were hospitalized with serious injuries sustained in the flood. It wasn’t until hours later that search crews would find the bodies of the two children far downstream, near Benjamin Feagin.

Timmy Feagin said a Ruidoso police officer called around 10 p.m. to say they found a body, after the family had spent hours searching, “pulling apart rubble and wreckage ... expecting to find something that you can’t prepare yourself to see.” He said the officer described some tattoos and a gold cross that his father always wore — he told Feagin it was best he didn’t see the body.

“I’m actually pretty happy, at the end of the day, that I don’t have to live with whatever image was left,” Feagin said.

You could hear Benjamin Feagin coming a mile away, his son said, whether it was his truck, his Harley, or his booming voice. A South Carolina native, Feagin set his sights on New Mexico after he retired as a welder.

He moved in with his son’s family in Las Cruces as they planned to get a property in Ruidoso, a place Benjamin Feagin had long eyed as home. Timmy Feagin said his father, who had not been a constant presence, had a hard life and “wanted to die a cowboy, living his life out on a ranch was the dream.”

As that dream came closer to reality, he moved into the RV Park on Memorial Day. Last Monday, he called his son, who was stressed over the property sale. Timmy Feagin said his father, who could be a tough man, sensed his son was going through it. Benjamin Feagin told his son everything would be alright and that he loved him.

Timmy Feagin said his father’s death doesn’t change their plans for the property, for the chickens and horses. It means even more now, he said.

“I’m really going to miss him, and it’s unfortunate that we won’t have future times,” he said, “but I am really happy that throughout his really, really hard life, that he had finally found his heaven on earth before he actually got to go.”

Matthew Reisen is the editor of the News Desk for the Albuquerque Journal. Follow him on Twitter at @MReisen88, call him at 505-823-3563 or reach him via email at mreisen@abqjournal.com.