Ruidoso, New Mexico Latest Place To Get Slammed By Flash Flood (Again!)

Screen grab from a video showing a 
house being swept downstream during
flash flooding in Ruidoso, New Mexico
Tuesday. The community has been hit
by repeated flash floods and debris
flows and Tuesday's was the worst yet.

The mountain town of Ruidoso, New Mexico once again been ravaged by floods and debris flows Tuesday, killing three people and destroying houses.

The deaths included a brother and sister, ages 4 and 7, continuing another horrible trend we've seen this summer of children frequently falling victims to floods and other disasters,   

Between 50 and 60 people had to be rescued from the swift flowing water. 

The main river in the area, the Rio Ruidoso, experienced a record high crest of 20.24 feet during the abrupt Tuesday flood. That's five feet higher than the previous record. 

Several homes were flattened or carried downstream. One widely circulated video shows a home racing along in the rapids and smashing into trees. 

Up to 2.5 inches of rain fell on wildfire-revaged hillsides above town, sending the water crashing through the community of about 8,000 people. 

 Moisture from the remnants of last week's Tropical Storm Barry continue to linger over the Southwest, which contributed to the flood in Ruidoso.

 Those Barry remnants were also a key ingredient to the catastrophic, deadly floods in the Texas Hill Country over the weekend. 

Tuesday's flood was the worst in a series of such floods since a June, 2024 wildfire in and near the town left the community vulnerable to these floods.

Per the Washington Post; 

"Last year's fires burned almost a thousand homes and killed two people. They also left Ruidoso and its population of almost 8,000 people particularly vulnerable to flash flooding, with the destruction of trees and a change in soil composition leaving the hillsides less able to absorb rain. Over the weeks that followed the fires, the scenic town was hit with multiple floods."

It's been an extremely month so far for flooding in the United States. The National Weather Service has received more than 300 reports of flooding since Friday. 

Elsewhere, parts of Chicago were swamped by more than five inches of rain in just an hour and a half. Areas just to the west of the Loop got the most, with numerous reports of people being rescued from flooded cars and buildings.

The flood was very localized, with Midway and O'Hare Airports a little to the northeast of the storm reporting less than a tenth of an inch of rain 

 Late this afternoon, a broad swath of the Mid-Atlantic States were under the gun for what could well be a widespread and serious flash flood event. As of 5 p.m. a large area of torrential thunderstorms was moving through West Virginia, Virginia and Maryland, and new flash flood warning were being hastily issued.

I think it was about this time last year I called it the summer of flash floods. This year is even worse in the United States, apparently.