The New Mexico mountain village of Ruidoso prepared Wednesday for another round of monsoon rains as crews scrambled to dig out from a historic flash flood that killed three people, damaged dozens of homes, and left streets and culverts clogged with mud and debris. A man, a 4-year-old girl and a 7-year-old boy were swept away from an RV park along the Rio Ruidoso as floodwaters raged through the area Tuesday afternoon. The bodies were found downstream from the park at a distance between 1/4 of a mile and 2 miles, the AP reports. The two children were related, but authorities were not releasing their names. They had yet to identify the man who was killed.
Ruidoso Mayor Lynn Crawford said the community is devastated by the loss of life, a tragedy that is not unfamiliar for the popular summer retreat, which is about 130 miles southeast of Albuquerque. Before summer rains began, Ruidoso had made much progress in recovering from last year's wildfires and post-fire flooding, but village officials acknowledged Tuesday's rain was too much to absorb. "As bad as it is, it could have been way worse because people did heed the warning, did get to higher ground," Crawford said during a radio address. "But we do have people that are in greater need today than they were yesterday."
New Mexico's governor signed an emergency declaration Tuesday night and requests were pending for more assistance from the federal government as search and rescue crews fanned out Wednesday in places that had been hard to reach the night before. Emergency crews completed dozens of swift water rescues before the water receded Tuesday. Crawford described an intense bout of rain that set the disaster in motion: "We received three and a half inches of rain on the South Fork burn scar in about a 90 minute period. That water came directly into our community and impacted the community head on."
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