Receding floodwaters leave a sea of mud and shattered homes in the Southwest

PAGOSA SPRINGS, Colo. — The massive amounts of water that flooded parts of the U.S. Southwest turned some communities into lakes of mud, leaving residents dealing with the loss of homes and businesses as they started cleaning up Tuesday.

Jack Ellis, a retired school teacher, surveyed the damage along the San Juan River in Pagosa Springs, Colo., which went through two rounds of severe flooding in recent weeks.

“This is quite a disaster for everybody, especially in the low-lying areas,” Ellis said. “We dig in and dig out, and that’s what it’s going to take.”

More than 20 trillion gallons of rain have fallen on the Four Corners states and Nevada in the last two weeks, according to calculations by former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief scientist Ryan Maue.

The skies were clearing Tuesday, but flood risks remained as all that water moves through the dry landscape where Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah meet. While hundreds of evacuees were returning home, swift-water rescue teams were kept busy. One person died in the floodwaters, and police suspect a second death was weather-related.

Some communities in Colorado and Utah made alternative election day voting plans because of the flooding. And as downpours swamped parts of Florida, some polling places were changed in at least eight counties after Gov. Ron DeSantis issued an emergency declaration.

Officials said the cleanup and repairs could take weeks or more in Pagosa Springs, where walkways and bridges collapsed or were heavily damaged. A sign in front of a resort where the entrance was covered with a tarp and sandbags were stacked read “Love Pagosa.”

“I hope the federal government helps out a little bit. I know we’re a blue state. I just hope that they come through because we all pay taxes and we all work for each other in a time like this,” Ellis said.

In Durango, about 60 miles to the west, Willow Bradner’s ranch-style home was surrounded by about two feet of mud. Nearly five feet of water from the overflowing Junction Creek poured inside at one point.

“Our basement became a soup bowl,” she said.

The basement had been a selling point when she bought the property in 2024. Bradner, who runs a small custom closet and storage business with her husband, said they had asked if they needed flood insurance and were told they were outside the flood zone.

While the couple and their teenage daughter have been offered a place to stay through the end of the year, and they’ve been offered the help of countless strangers armed with shovels, the loss of their home and uncertainty over the future is overwhelming.

“The majority of our savings is in this house,” she said. “We have to dig deep and we have to rebuild.”

Officials in New Mexico’s San Juan County, where there have been a number of evacuations, said the major rivers, including the San Juan, Animas and La Plata, all have crested.

“None are below flood stage, but will continue to recede,” the agency posted online Tuesday. “We believe that the crest has passed on all rivers, but it will take 24-48 hours for floodwaters to recede.”

Peterson writes for the Associated Press. AP journalists Savannah Peters in Santa Fe, N.M., and Kathy McCormack in Concord, N.H., contributed to this report.