Some rivers began receding in the flood-weary Southwest on Monday, including in a Colorado tourist town that has to alter its Election Day voting plans, while others were still rising, keeping residents on alert as rain began to move out of the area.
Heavy weekend rainfall produced flash flooding and mandatory evacuations across a swath of the Southwest, including parts of New Mexico, Colorado and Utah in the Four Corners region and in northern and central Arizona. The weather service estimated as much as 4 inches (10 centimeters) of rain could fall across the region through Monday, fueled by a series of Pacific storm systems.
Evacuees included some residents along the rising Animas River in southwestern Colorado, where all La Plata County roads remained closed Monday because of widespread flooding and damage to bridges.
Officials warned of “potentially catastrophic” flooding in Pagosa Springs in neighboring Archuleta County, a town of more than 2,000 located near ski resorts and known for its hot springs. But readings late Sunday night showed the San Juan River started to recede after reaching 16.81 feet (5.1 meters) and was forecast to keep dropping Monday, the National Weather Service said. The sheriff's office had warned that most of the town was wiped out by a 1911 flood that crested at approximately 17.8 feet (5.4 meters).
The flooding prompted the Colorado Secretary of State's office to set up alternative voting plans for Pagosa Springs residents.
The San Juan River was still rising Monday further downstream, in New Mexico, where new evacuations were ordered for some residents in San Juan County, including some Navajo communities. The Utah Navajo Health System posted several active highway closures, with detours.
Others were evacuated from New Mexico's Rio Arriba County, where the Rio Chama was under a flood warning through Tuesday. Still farther south, the rising Jemez River made campgrounds and fishing sites inaccessible.
In the picturesque town of Sedona, Arizona, officials ordered residents near Oak Creek to leave Sunday as floodwaters trapped multiple people in their homes.
“Most of the rain is winding down,” David Byers, a meteorologist with the weather service office in Grand Junction, Colorado, said Monday. The next few days look drier.
In Pagosa Springs, town residents impacted by the floods who haven't voted yet can also "visit any voter center across the state to request and receive a replacement ballot,” the Secretary of State's office said in a news release.
Those who decide to cast in-person ballots outside their home county can only vote for statewide races, the office said. But if they have access to their mail ballot, they can return that ballot to any drop box or voter center in the state by 7 p.m. on Election Day and it will make it back to their county clerk for signature verification and tabulation, the office said.
Voting centers will still be open in La Plata County, but some county offices, including the clerk's office, will have special hours on Tuesday.
Katie German, owner and chef of Bruin Coffee in Pagosa Springs, said Sunday that downtown had been evacuated and that there was street flooding. German said she was most worried about the one bridge into town washing out, preventing trucks carrying everything from food to fuel from getting in.
Town officials had just lifted an evacuation order from flooding last week only to reimpose it Saturday.
“I’m worried about my business, worried about my employees, definitely worried for everybody in this town,” German said.
Arizona's Yavapai County and the community of Camp Verde ordered evacuations of residents living near swollen rivers and creeks. And Gila County officials ordered the total evacuation of Gisela, a community of several hundred along Tonto Creek.
The wet conditions even produced flash floods, river flooding and swiftboat rescues in Tucson, where weather service meteorologist Aaron Hardin said “we are getting two or three months of rain in a span of a couple of days.”
Rain fell nearly nonstop Sunday in Flagstaff, Arizona, flooding local roads and overwhelming storm drains. Authorities were searching for a man who slipped and fell into fast-moving floodwaters “and was not seen resurfacing,” a police statement said.
And in the Pinetop-Lakeside area of central Arizona, “manhole covers are popping up all over” and residents reported sewage backing up into homes because of flooding, the region’s sanitary district announced.
