A Blue Sky Over San Juan County While Brown Water Floods Homes
On Friday afternoon, Devin Neeley looked out a window in San Juan County, N.M., and saw light, puffy clouds and a blue sky. Meanwhile, brown rainwaters were flooding homes in low-lying parts of the county and forcing sewage into the San Juan River. Neeley said these are communities with beautiful riverfront places to live, which is unfortunately a problem today.
Rare, heavy rainfall began hitting the Four Corners region—New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Arizona—on Wednesday. Since then, severe brown floodwaters have led to road closures, mandatory evacuations and emergency declarations across the four states. A southern Utah city issued an emergency declaration on Thursday after flooding damaged more than 100 homes and RVs.
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The riverfront line is the sharpest detail: the same feature that makes these communities lovely is what puts homes in the path of brown water.
But the scale is regional, not just one riverfront: rare heavy rain began Wednesday across four states, and since then floodwaters have closed roads and forced evacuations.