Imagine residents of New Mexico not wanting rain.
Normally, the desert state enjoys when the heavens sprinkle rain on the usually dry land to irrigate crops and offer a reprise from the heat. But enough is enough.
The rain in June and July has been the most New Mexico has seen since 2015, a KOB 4 news report said this week, citing the National Weather Service. Some areas of the state have seen the most rain in 130 years.
“We all, you know, are looking forward to the end of the monsoon season, which is a strange thing for a New Mexican to say, I realize,” Collin Haffey, Forest and Watershed health coordinator with the New Mexico Forestry Division, told KOB 4.
The rain has been oppressive, flooding homes, washing away crops and shutting down roadways throughout the state.
“Off of New Mexico 240 we had heavy rains that produced up to four feet deep water, and so some of those intersections were just completely closed off,” Kimberly Gallegos of the New Mexico Department of Transportation (NMDOT) told KOB 4.
NMDOT reported that it has dispersed 82 maintenance patrols statewide to deal with the flood damage.
“They are working around the clock,” Gallegos said.
The burn scars from the Cerro Pelado, Cooks Peak, McBride, Nogal, Black, Calf Canyon and Hermits Peak fires have added to the problems, allowing the monsoons to spread debris in areas where it doesn’t belong.
“The fires have fundamentally altered the way that our watersheds and valleys respond to rain events,” Haffey said. “So without the fires, even with this amount of rain, we wouldn’t expect to see this much flooding.”
