Airlift planned for New Mexico town isolated by flooding
By RUSSELL CONTRERAS Associated Press September 17, 2013 11:18AM
Workers from Burn Construction Company Inc., begin work on multiple utility lines in a sinkhole on San Antonio Street in La Union, N.M. on Monday, Sept. 16, 2013. A severe flood ripped through the small community on Sept. 12. Workers estimated the drop into the hole to be 13-feet deep and 30-feet wide. (AP PHOTO/Las Cruces Sun-News, Shari Vialpando-Hill)
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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — An emergency airlift of food, water and other supplies was planned Tuesday for a tiny western New Mexico community that remained isolated after weekend flooding damaged the only paved road leading to it.
Officials worked out the details of the delivery to the privately run ghost town of Mogollon as other parts of the state stayed on alert or assessed the aftermath of heavy rains that have fallen since last week.
Forecasters said flash flooding was less likely in much of northern and central New Mexico. But continued rain was keeping that threat alive in some areas, particularly on the eastern plains south of Interstate 40.
In Mogollon, a creek paralleling the one paved road into town — state Route 159 — surged from its banks after heavy rains. Roughly 15 residents live year-round in the former mining town nestled in the mountains on the western side of the state.
“The water washed away the road and pretty much made it a creek bed,” said Joe Tafoya, a state Department of Transportation supervisor in nearby Cliff. “As far as we can see, the pavement is gone.”
Authorities planned to use a bulldozer to scrape out a makeshift road for four-wheel drive vehicles. Tafoya said there was no estimate on when the work would be completed.
Gov. Susana Martinez approved the emergency airlift to Mogollon, but details were still being worked out late Monday, according to Enrique Knell, a spokesman for the governor.
Mogollon wasn’t the only town hit-hard with flooding in the Gila National Forest.
Marianne Sutton, owner of the Whitewater Motel in Glenwood, said the basement of her motel was flooded starting late Sunday when a nearby creek overflowed its banks. She evacuated guests from three rooms. Water filled her backyard and floated the propane tank that serves the motel.
“It was horrendous,” she said in a telephone interview Monday night.
She was left with no hot water or propane, and said her septic system might have been compromised by the flooding.
Whitewater Creek swept up debris, including burnt logs from a fire in the mountains last year. The debris snagged on a bridge in town, Sutton said.
Meanwhile, the American Red Cross said it has opened a new shelter in Crownpoint in northwestern New Mexico.
That shelter at Crownpoint High School is being used by Navajo Technical University students. They’d been in a temporary shelter because of storm damage to the university campus last week.
Forecasters said flash flooding was less likely in much of northern and central New Mexico but that continued rain was keeping that threat alive in some areas, particularly on the eastern plains south of Interstate 40.
Scattered showers and some heavy rainfall were expected to continue through Tuesday and later into the week, according to the National Weather Service.
“Comparing this week with last week, we’re definitely going to be quieting down,” said Christopher Luckett, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Albuquerque.
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Associated Press writer Barry Massey in Santa Fe contributed to this report.
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Follow Russell Contreras at http://twitter.com/russcontreras.
