Raging floodwaters have ravaged northwest New Mexico, trapping families on rooftops and sparking frantic helicopter rescues as a powerful Pacific storm unleashes chaos across the Southwest.
“Once-in-a-generation” flooding along the San Juan and Animas rivers slammed communities across San Juan County Thursday, with more water expected to surge downstream through the weekend.
New Mexico State Police and National Guard troops were seen pulling stranded residents to safety and scouring the river in Bloomfield as floodwaters swallowed cars, poured into homes and forced families onto rooftops.
“We lost everything, everything… We were all freaked out and stuff, but one of us had to be the adult,” mother Aimee Goodday told KOAT.
Goodday was jolted awake around midnight Friday when freezing floodwater began pouring into her trailer. She rushed her family onto the roof, where they remained stranded for 12 hours before rescuers finally reached them.
“This is a once-in-a-generation time. This is singular and this is real. So far, we have not had any deaths but this is not anything that should be played with,” Farmington Police Chief Steve Hebbe said at a press conference.
At least 60 rescues have been carried out between Farmington and Bloomfield since Thursday afternoon, according to KOAT. An infant suffering seizures was also rescued by the New Mexico National Guard Thursday night.
The flooding forced around 600 households in Farmington to evacuate, while emergency shelters were opened at McGee Park to house displaced families.
The disaster was triggered by a Pacific storm system that moved inland across Southern California, dumping heavy rain and sending millions of gallons of runoff surging into the San Juan and Animas rivers.
The storm has battered multiple states across the Southwest, including Colorado, Utah and Arizona.
In Utah, the city of Hurricane declared an emergency Thursday after “approximately 80 residential homes and 50 recreational vehicles” were impacted.
Southern Colorado also saw floodwaters rise as high as four to five feet inside some homes, leaving residents scrambling to escape.
“As of this morning we had about 1,000 families evacuated,” Colorado Gov. Jared Polis told The Colorado Sun.
Polis also declared a disaster emergency, urging residents to follow local officials’ instructions as the region grapples with the devastating flooding.
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