Two people are dead and one person remains missing after flash flooding unfolded this week in a stretch of northern New Mexico previously devastated by the state’s largest wildfire on record, officials announced Friday.
The San Miguel County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement that first responders recovered the bodies of two women in separates parts of a creek Thursday afternoon. Investigators also found a capsized vehicle. Tim Nix, the chief of the Cabo Lucero Volunteer Fire Department, told the Associated Press that the two bodies were found near Las Vegas, N.M., about 67 miles east of Santa Fe.
The sheriff’s office noted that the New Mexico State Police and authorities were continuing “to search for the third individual, believed to be an adult male.” The names of the victims and the missing man had not been released as of early Saturday.
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Heavy rains have pounded northern New Mexico this week, at a rate of more than an inch per hour in some areas. The rains have inundated areas already scarred by the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire, which has devastated the state for more than three months. The blaze, which has burned more than 341,000 acres since early April, was 93 percent contained as of Saturday, according to New Mexico Fire Information.
The Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire was a merger of two prescribed burns in the state that quickly grew out of control because of high winds. Larger in area than the city of Los Angeles, it has destroyed more than 900 structures, including many homes, and is the most destructive blaze in state history.
The cost to battle the blaze has exceeded an estimated $284 million. President Biden announced last month during a visit to New Mexico that the federal government would fully reimburse the state for costs related to emergency protective work and debris removal.
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New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) said in a statement that she was saddened by the deaths in the latest “heartbreaking blow” for the state. She also called on Biden for additional federal assistance to help with the flooding in the burned area, saying that county and state agencies, as well as volunteer groups, were operating at mass capacity over the past few months.
“For a community that has already been through so much this year, this loss is another heartbreaking blow,” the governor said. “... The communities in impacted areas have been unable to recover from the initial impact of the largest wildfire in New Mexico history. Now, these same communities are threatened by worsening monsoon rains with the potential to cause even more catastrophic damages.”
Edward Dominguez, a resident of Las Vegas, N.M., told the Albuquerque Journal that the wildfire had destroyed much of his family’s 300-year-old ranch home and the small chapel his mother had built.
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“Then the floods came, and whatever was standing there is for sure gone now,” said Dominguez, 60.
The potential for additional flash flooding in the state is likely to remain through the middle of next week because of a “surge of monsoon moisture,” according to the National Weather Service office in Albuquerque. The Weather Service said the scars in the burned area made that stretch of the state “especially susceptible to runoff, flash flooding and debris flow.”
The San Miguel County Sheriff’s Office on Friday stressed to residents who are walking or driving that they should “not attempt to cross water on roadways.”
“It only takes a few inches of water to wash a vehicle downstream,” the sheriff’s office wrote. “San Miguel County would like to remind all residents to stay vigilant and aware of the flooding dangers during monsoon season.”
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