Flooding in Santa Fe ‘a 1,000-year event’
There was little outward indication -- from the sky, at least -- of the hellacious deluge that had nearly washed away the City Different the night before.
A look around town, however, made abundantly clear the impact of the extraordinary monsoon rains that struck
Streets were covered in banks of sand and gravel, left over by the stormwater that had turned roadways into rushing rivers of mud the previous night. Trees came down, and normally bone-dry arroyos were washed out, swamped in detritus. Low-lying homes and businesses took on water, although how many and the extent of damage to private property were not immediately known.
A sidewalk on
"I've never seen it this fast, that furious," said Dr.
City firefighter
Ten city street crew members worked through the night, clearing major roadways of debris. Mayor
By midday Tuesday, more than 200 dedicated city staff were in the field. Some were assisting at a south-side firehouse, where the city made 6,000 sandbags available to the public. "That's all we have on hand," a fire official at the
At
Downtown and the city's center were the hardest-hit areas, according to forecasters, who reported 3.57 inches of rainfall south of the Plaza -- more than a fourth of the city's annual average rainfall delivered in one delirious night.
It was the sort of storm
That translates into a "500 or 1,000-year rain event," he said.
The reason he couldn't be more specific, Craft said, is simply that the
Some were freer with hyperbole.
"This was over a 1,000-year event," said
The project recently completed a one-mile segment of riverbed restoration and paved bike trail from Frenchy's
On Monday night, rainwater rushing down the Santa Fe River wiped out all of the cottonwoods, Kaseman said, though he expects many of the willows to recover because their roots remain intact. He said the project would seek to file an insurance claim for a reimbursement.
There could be more rain in store.
Forecasts showed a risk of heavy rainfall Tuesday night. The area is in a "wet pattern," Craft said, "and it's going to be a situation where every afternoon and evening there's showers and thunderstorms" through the end of the week.
The weekend, he added, could be even wetter. And more floods are possible.
"The ground's completely primed," Craft said. "You don't need it to be that much more rain to cause significant flooding. Even a one-inch event would probably cause significant problems for
The weather service established a flash-flood watch in
City officials would continue to huddle at a makeshift emergency operations center into Tuesday night, city spokesman
The city was not aware of any loss of life or serious injury as a result of the storm, or any disruptions to utility service beyond some power outages, Ross said. There was no estimate yet of the cost of the damage to city infrastructure.
Municipal emergency services took more than 60 911 calls Monday night; a map showed the calls were concentrated downtown and in the St. Michael's Drive corridor, where rainfall was heaviest.
Calls to several
"We've seen it big before -- but this was big," Lucero said.
A pair of massive city trucks lumbered up and down the steep dirt street Tuesday afternoon, dumping and scraping sand into the precipitous carved-out depressions left by the flooding water.
"We're prioritizing our response based on public safety," said Ross, the city spokesman, who added there had been gas lines exposed in the area.
Some of the public safety response was instinct more than anything else.
Candelaria, the city firefighter, described a fraught scene as the rain began to intensify. He and cohorts from
Her car began to float.
Candelaria said one colleague,
Firefighter
"We literally pulled her out two seconds before the roof went under," Candelaria said. "If we aren't there looking at those cars, they would've pulled her out a couple hours later. She would've been gone."
Damaged item pickup
The city encouraged residents to place water-damaged items on the curb or toward the front of their property and call 505-955-6949 to set up collections, which will begin Thursday. The city also asked residents to call the same number to report damage to public infrastructure.
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