A rain-soaked swath of the Southwest U.S. endured additional flooding as crews in New Mexico scoured evacuated neighborhoods Sunday for dead animals, downed power lines and other hazards left behind by receding floodwaters and at least one tornado.
With more showers and thunderstorms moving through, the National Weather Service issued a flood watch for much of the Four Corners region — the meeting point of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah. The area has experienced unusually heavy rain since Wednesday that caused rivers to surge, flooding homes and forcing water rescues.
“The soils are very saturated right now, so it’s not going to take much rain for at least the small creeks and streams to overflow,” said Kris Sanders, a meteorologist at the weather service office in Grand Junction, Colorado.
A tornado touched down in Santa Fe, New Mexico, around 7 p.m. Saturday, and forecasters were trying to confirm whether twisters also struck elsewhere in the state, said meteorologist Scott Overpeck with the weather service in Albuquerque. He did not have damage estimates.
Michelle Vialpando spotted a tornado from her patio in the Aldea de Santa Fe neighborhood, facing north towards Los Alamos. She had just gotten home from work and stepped outside to look at what she called “crazy” storm clouds when she noticed the twister.
“I was pretty surprised at what I was seeing and just started snapping photos,” Vialpando wrote Sunday via Facebook. “I was literally in shock. I’ve lived in Santa Fe my entire life and have never seen anything like that before.”
In the Farmington area of New Mexico, local officials said swollen rivers were receding but that many people remained evacuated and hundreds were without power.
San Juan County, New Mexico, did not have official figures on the number of homes damaged or how many people were evacuated, but officials were not aware of any deaths, spokesperson Devin Neeley told The Associated Press.
“It’s a pretty active disaster zone,” he said. “We’re not on the downswing by any means.”
About 4 feet (1.2 meters) of water flooded the home of county Sheriff Shane Ferrari. He said the area’s situation was stable Sunday, but he and other residents were trying to clean up.
Officials in the hard-hit county urged patience and caution Sunday. Water could be contaminated with chemicals and raw sewage, and gas and propane lines could be broken, among other hazards.
“The public is anxious to get back in,” San Juan County Fire & Rescue Chief David Vega acknowledged at a news conference. “But I want the public to know there are still hazards out there.”
Undersheriff Cory Tanner said officials were going from house to house to check for hazards — a process that could take days to complete.
In the Shiprock, New Mexico, area of the Navajo Nation, wastewater facilities and water holding ponds were damaged by flooding, causing sewage releases into the San Juan River, according to Navajo Tribal Utility Authority Shiprock District Manager Wilfred Franklin Jr. Officials didn't know Sunday how much sewage made it into the river.
New Mexico's congressional delegation on Sunday urged President Donald Trump to declare an emergency for the state to release federal assistance funding.
The flooding is just the latest from two months of on-and-off heavy rain in the region caused by tropical moisture coming ashore from the Pacific. After months of drought, other recent deadly flooding struck the Grand Canyon and other areas of New Mexico.
Forecasters said El Niño, the natural and temporary warming of parts of the Pacific, was likely to blame for the latest storm's unusually heavy rainfall.
“It’s been more or less three or four days,” said Anthony Brown, lead meteorologist at the weather service office in Santa Teresa, New Mexico. “It’s pretty unusual.”
___
Associated Press writers Anna Wilder in Austin, Texas, and Christopher Weber in Los Angeles contributed.