Sally king
Bandelier flood 9.13
Despite record rainfall that caused flooding across New Mexico in the last two days and a flash flood watch still in effect through Saturday night, the day was quiet at the Santa Fe regional 911 emergency dispatch center.---
Gov. Susana Martinez declared a statewide disaster on Friday because of problems in San Miguel, Guadalupe, Eddy and Sierra Counties, and flooding in Colorado has reached much more dangerous proportions. But local reports of problems from the weather have not been overly dramatic.
Some canyons and arroyos flooded onto roadways around Santa Fe, Pecos and La Cienega, leaving a mess of trees, brush and rock. Santa Fe County Emergency Management Director Martin Vigil tells SFR that a shelter was opened Friday for Santa Clara Pueblo, but no one showed up. Bandelier National Monument near Los Alamos is closed for the weekend. (Its flooded parking lot is pictured above.)
Some observers with the Community, Collaborative Rain, Snow and Hail Network reported 24-hour precipitation of as much as 1.4 inches in the county. The Santa Fe River earned its name, and the Rio Grande was a churning, muddy force that peaked at 8,000 cubic feet per second at the Otowi Gauge late Friday. A normal, non-storm flow this year has been between 300 and 400 cubic feet per second.
"That's the biggest I've ever seen it in my lifetime," says Rick Carpenter, water resources and conservation manager for the city of Santa Fe. "That's beyond huge."
Yet by mid-day Saturday, Vigil says, the 911 dispatch center was experiencing normal call volume for a weekend, no major roads were closed in the county, and things seemed quiet.
That doesn't mean, he says, that more rain predicted for the coming days won't have consequences here.
"The weather reports still have a potential for the weekend," he says, "and now everything is really saturated."
