RUIDOSO, N.M. (KTSM) — It’s been all hands on deck since raging flash floods ripped through Ruidoso on Tuesday, July 8.
The floods killed three people, including two children, and destroyed homes, vehicles and businesses.
Now, the community is coming together to clear debris and try to begin the recovery process, even with the threat of more flash flooding this weekend.
Photos by Edith Montero/KTSM
“There’s so many cars,” Ruidoso Fire Chief Cade Hall said. “There’s trucks. There’s houses, propane tanks, all kinds of stuff in the way, and they’re trying to get it all cleared up here.”
Since Tuesday, crews have been working around the clock, clearing debris along the Rio Ruidoso, one of the flash points of Tuesday’s flooding.
That way if there is more flooding, the runoff will have an easier time flowing through the river.
As the Ruidoso community is working on recovery, it is also bracing for the possibility of more flooding, which could be catastropic.
“And what we do is we try to have these target points where when that water starts coming down, we have these areas to establish where we can go if somebody gets taken away into the river — lines across, or we can have a catch and pick them off,” Hall said.
Darlene Apachito is one Ruidoso resident who lost almost everything.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she said. “I can’t eat. I know this is replaceable, but we worked hard for it.”
Apachito said she and her family lived in a mobile home for more than two decades, only to watch it be destroyed.
“When they tell you to leave, you got to leave, becuase we lost some people here and it’s scary,” she said.
After the sudden devastation of Tuesday’s flash floods, Ruidoso’s fire chief wants to remind people to pay attention to their emergency alerts and take action as soon as the first alert comes in. That way they have enough time to get out and seek higher ground.
Read: Read More