Eddie Gutierrez looked at the brewery windows as the river turned into a violent torrent, sweeping away the neighbor’s house.
In the flood in Ruidoso, New Mexico, Tuesday afternoon, two children, including two children, were killed and many property was destroyed.
But the village is ready and flood experts are on the ground and plan it, Gutierrez said.
By the next morning, the sun was shining and the town was “almost open as usual.”
“It’s hard to see this, and then the next day is almost completely normal, almost as if it didn’t happen.”
A few days ago, neighboring Texas also experienced major floods, but the results were very different.
The brutality of Texas’ submerged surprises forecasters and state officials, killing at least 119 people.
In Ruidoso on Tuesday, rain fell up to 3.5 inches (8.8 cm), piercing water on the surrounding mountainside and swelling to a high record before the village flooded a bunch of people.
The area around Ruidoso is already vulnerable to flooding due to wildfires that hit New Mexico last summer.
In June 2024, the South Fork and the Salt Fire swept over Ruidoso, two were killed and hundreds of houses were destroyed.
Residents were forced to evacuate as the fire destroyed 10,000 hectares (25,000 acres) of land on both sides of the village.
A few days later, residents faced a one or two punches from a devastating flood.
After these wildfires last year, the houses around Mr. Gutierrez’s brewery remained vacant. The house he saw floated on the river Tuesday afternoon and was one of many houses empty after the wildfire.
Local officials are very aware that the “burn scars” – areas of vegetation do not absorb long-term rain – causing more flooding in a certain area for years after the fire.
The National Weather Service (NWS) said the two “burn scars” around Ruidoso will cause the burnt soil left by wildfires to “like a walkway.”
Tuesday’s flooding is more of a side effect.
“These floods are OK, we know they will come, and they did,” Gutierrez said.
When a community familiar with weather risks, they adapt to Upmanu Lall, director of the Water Institute at Julie Ann Regley Global Futures Laboratory, Arizona State University.
“The way human nature works is that if they have experienced an event recently, that can inform the response.”
“If your experience is hit by floods, you may evacuate, and if you keep getting warnings and nothing happens, you are unlikely to evacuate.”
In Texas, a state caused many uninformed floods.
One reason is the staggering amount of rainfall, estimated to reach 100 million gallons, exceeding the daily flow of Niagara Falls.
The predawn disaster last Friday grew 26 feet (8m) in just 45 minutes, while the little children and staff at summer camp fell asleep when they sent out the weather alert.
Searchers in Texas are still sifting the debris to obtain dozens of missing persons.
Experts say there are many factors that lead to tragic flooding in Texas, including pre-dawn timing, location of some houses and extreme weather.
Questions were raised about whether authorities provided sufficient flood warnings before the disaster and why people did not evacuate early.
“We don’t even have a warning,” Joe Herring, mayor of Kerrville, Texas, told CNN.
Health & Wellness Contributor
A wellness enthusiast and certified nutrition advisor, Meera covers everything from healthy living tips to medical breakthroughs. Her articles aim to inform and inspire readers to live better every day.
