Colorado, Utah communities flood as yet more moisture saturates US Southwest
PHOENIX (AP) — More severe weather struck the Four Corners region Thursday, with flooding that swamped dozens of homes in Utah and led to evacuations of low-lying areas in Colorado, a day after tornadoes blew off roofs, knocked trees onto houses and downed power lines in Arizona.
The city of Hurricane in far southwestern Utah declared a state of emergency after reddish-brown floodwater lapped into and around 80 homes in a neighborhood and 50 recreational vehicles in an RV park.
Surreal scenes included a shipping container drifting slowly down a street.
Chelsey Field had just finished dropping her kids off at school when she noticed water rising around her neighbor’s property in Hurricane.
“The trucks had water up to the windshield, about halfway submerged,” Field said. “That whole area was covered in water.”
Luckily, her neighbors were able to pull their horses to safety, using a tractor to move debris. This is the second flood Field has seen in her 15 years living in Hurricane. The last was only two months ago.
“It’s pretty crazy to happen again, and I think this time it’s worse,” she said.
In southern Colorado, rising waters prompted mandatory evacuations along four rivers, including the San Juan River through Pagosa Springs. The resort town famous for its riverside hot springs suffered flooding from a similar weather pattern a year ago.
Local officials including Town Manager David Harris had their eyes on floodwaters expected to crest a foot (30 centimeters) higher than during last year's flood, from which he said they “learned a lot.”
Others may not have. Daredevils were seen taking advantage of the floodwaters to go whitewater rafting, raising worries they would need rescue by emergency crews already stretched thin, Harris said.
“There’s a lot of debris,” Harris said. “The last thing we want to do is have to perform an extraction.”
The flooding was not unexpected, just the latest from two months of heavy rain that ended a summer of drought. While parts of the Southwest are rocky with little vegetation and naturally prone to flash flooding, the recent rains have made flooding everywhere more likely, said Kate Abbott, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Grand Junction, Colorado.
“At this point we’re saturated and can’t take too much more without flooding,” Abbott said. “This is the third or fourth round of this kind of moisture we’ve seen in as many weeks.”
Rivers were expected to crest Friday morning after rain tapers off overnight.
The Arizona tornadoes Wednesday night injured at least one person.
This fall has been unusually soggy in the Southwest, an area better known for scalding heat, with El Niño conditions that have sent one tropical system after another in from the Pacific, causing the Grand Canyon and surrounding deserts to rage with floods.
National Weather Service meteorologists suspect at least three tornadoes touched down as storms swept across central Arizona late Wednesday.
The nasty weather hit during Lenna Landy's yoga routine in Overgaard, Arizona, a community of about 3,000 people located 140 miles (225 kilometers) northeast of Phoenix. Landy had ignored alerts about a possible tornado, but then the storm struck.
“It was like Zeus-was-angry kind of level, of thunder cracks,” Landy said.
The power went off, her house shook and Landy couldn't find her glasses.
“If this is my end, I won’t see it coming,” she recalled thinking. “The scariest part was just like, how quickly it came on,” Landy said.
The storm hit as members of the Overgaard Baptist Church were wrapping up a prayer meeting.
Pastor Eric Woods had just led prayers for people to stay safe in the weather when chandeliers started swinging and the power went out. He told everyone to run into the women’s bathroom, which had concrete walls and no windows.
“It just came on like a freight train,” he said. “I thought the roof was coming off.”
They continued to pray in the bathroom, Woods said. They emerged later to see damage to the church roof and many trees including an old-growth ponderosa pine tree that toppled.
Warm, moist air moving north fuels storms coming in from the California coast. Changing winds can make them spin, creating the conditions for tornadoes, said Ryan Bernhart, a weather service meteorologist in Flagstaff.
“This is very unusual for this area at this time of the year,” Bernhart said.
Tornadoes are somewhat but not exceptionally unusual in Arizona. Notable outbreaks happened in 2019 and 2010.
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Hill reported from Las Vegas, and Gruver from Fort Collins, Colorado. Associated Press journalists Mikella Schuettler in Phoenix and Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire, contributed.
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