OPINION: Flash flood warning systems need a 21st century overhaul

The July 8 Journal front-page headline of “Could it happen here?” was prescient.

“Experts weigh NM’s risk and preparedness for catastrophic flooding,” read the subheadline.

The Journal story was about the biblical-scale tragedy that took place in Texas Hill Country the early morning hours of the Fourth of July, where young girls at a summer camp and hundreds of others were killed or are missing from campgrounds, recreational vehicle parks and mobile home communities along the record-cresting Guadalupe River.

The Associated Press photo of a young girl, her head buried in her hands in anguish, wearing rain boots outside the sleeping quarters of Camp Mystic in Hunt, Texas — where bunk beds inside cabins were scattered along with the belongings of campers — was profoundly heart-wrenching, even to this old newsroom salt.

“The short answer is yes, of course, it could absolutely happen here,” Joseph Galewsky, chair of the University of New Mexico’s Earth and Planetary Sciences Department, told the Journal in an interview for the July 8 story. “Here in New Mexico, with mountainous topography, you can get situations where thunderstorms are kind of locked onto the topography and get a huge amount of rainfall in one location.”

I witnessed such a mini-scale river flooding north of Española in 2013 while reporting for the Rio Grande SUN. The usually lazy Chama River churned like a washing machine and rose like an angry ocean after a brief rainfall. Uprooted trees bobbed up and down in the river. Bridges were closed as they faced the risk of collapsing if a tier were struck by a boulder or something heavy. Crowds of locals gathered along the Chama to witness the spectacle. It came suddenly, out of nowhere, and after only a brief rainfall in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

Fortunately, no one was killed or seriously injured, but some residents in low-lying areas along the Chama had their homes nearly covered by water. The Chama actually didn’t overflow its banks. The flooding instead came from arroyos flowing out of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains that rapidly filled and poured downhill across U.S. Route 285 toward the Chama River, washing away anything in the path.

The disaster-battered village of Ruidoso wasn’t so fortunate on Tuesday, when heavy rains and flash flooding claimed the lives of three people, including two children.

The National Weather Service initially issued a flash flood warning for the South Fork Burn Scar, in the mountains surrounding Ruidoso, at 3:18 p.m. on Tuesday. The rains had stopped sometime before 5:30 p.m., and the waters soon began to recede, but not before sweeping away a 4-year-old girl, a 7-year-old boy and a middle-aged man in “unprecedented” floodwaters that reached into stalls at Ruidoso Downs Racetrack and Casino.

“It got ugly really quick,” said Ruidoso Mayor Lynn Crawford, adding the velocity and force of the floodwaters rivaled the flash floods that followed last summer’s catastrophic South Fork Fire.

Yes, flash flooding comes quickly in mountainous areas, and our TV and cellphone warning systems are proving inadequate time and time again. I’m not a scientist, but there has to be a better way of warning people of imminent flash flooding than early morning text messages to 7- and 8-year-old campers without cellphones or beeping alerts on a night owl’s TV.

NWS warnings are helpful, but they are based on forecasts and radar sightings, not necessarily on actual conditions on the ground. We have monitors that gauge river levels, but the data aren’t used in real time for weather warnings. How about a system that monitors river levels and shares that information with the public in real time in unavoidable ways? In dangerous conditions, couldn’t drones be deployed to fly up and down a swollen river warning people to evacuate the riverbanks immediately?

The NWS office in Albuquerque posted on X that the Rio Ruidoso, which runs through the village, possibly reached a crest of 20.24 feet on Tuesday.

“If this is confirmed, it would be a record high crest (compared to last year’s crest of 15.86 feet on July 20th),” the post stated.

Why the need to wait for confirmation? Everyone along the Rio Ruidoso and Guadalupe River could have been notified in advance of the flash flooding if a 21st century warning system had been in place. If drones can be used to deliver food to our doorsteps and to precisely attack targets hundreds of miles away, why can’t they be used to warn campers of rising floodwaters?

TV and cellphone alerts just aren’t cutting it. We’ve come to ignore weather warnings on our cellphones, and we’ll likely continue to do so and not heed the warnings to seek higher ground unless we’re convinced the warnings are pertinent to our specific locations.

A Ruidoso public information officer said the city was notified by NWS about the potential of floods 24 hours before they happened. What good did that do the three people killed? The spokesperson said Ruidoso has an internal communication system with NWS that updates on an hourly basis, with additional updates if the city is in a weather emergency. Again, what good did that do the three people swept away?

“Alerts are only as good as the actions taken of getting the message out to the community and its residents after the alerts are received by state and local officials,” said Ruidoso village spokesperson Kerry Gladden.

Exactly. Ruidoso has an outdoor warning system, but how many village residents know if the siren is sounding for a tornado, fire or flood along the river?

There must be a better way, especially in areas prone to flooding like the burn scar left by from the South Fork Fire, to warn people of an imminent potential disaster. And we need to find it quickly to truly save lives from catastrophic flash flooding in the future.