Alyssa Gallegos watches flood damage videos. A familiar sight flashes across the screen: her stepfather’s home in Pagosa Springs, Colorado. Raging floodwaters sweep it off its foundation.
Inside, she knows, were old photographs and other treasured possessions from her childhood. “My heart’s crushed,” she says.
Meanwhile, about 60 miles to the west in Durango, mud surrounds Willow Bradner’s ranch-style home. A creek overflows. Nearly five feet of water pour into the house. She says, “Our basement became a soup bowl.”
People in the U.S. Southwest are hurting. Heavy rain fell on and off for almost two weeks. Skies began to clear Tuesday. Floodwaters receded . . . leaving a huge, muddy, soggy mess to clean up. In all, more than 20 trillion gallons of rain have fallen on Nevada and the Four Corners states (Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah) in the past two weeks. That’s as much water as flows over Niagara Falls in 10 months!
Jack Ellis studies the damage along the San Juan River in Pagosa Springs. In the last few weeks, floods hit the area over and over.
“This is quite a disaster for everybody,” he says, “especially in the low-lying areas. We dig in and dig out, and that’s what it’s going to take.”
Here’s what made the flooding extreme: The area already had an unusually wet fall. The ground was already saturated. Then more and more rain came. The ground and rivers couldn’t hold it all.
Tragically, at least one person died in floodwaters.
Florida got hit too—just in time for midterm elections. Officials had to change at least 20 polling places. Some in Colorado and Utah had to do the same.
Ms. Gallegos works for the U.S. Postal Service carrying mail. She spent Tuesday morning helping get mail-in ballots from mailboxes to the post office in time to be counted.
Even when “we’re in a crisis and having a hard time, the world doesn’t stop turning,” she says.
Pray for the people affected by the Southwest flooding. Ask God to send exactly the help they need.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you. — Isaiah 43:2
