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பேரிடர் · Southwest floods

Four New Mexico communities cleared to return after dam scare; Rincon stays evacuated

Salem, Garfield, Hatch and Placitas received permission to return after a small piping failure at McLeod Dam was reported mitigated. Rincon’s flooding—and the dam’s final condition—remain unresolved.

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Families in four New Mexico communities received permission to go home late Tuesday after hours of warnings that a nearby dam could fail. For residents of Rincon, the wait continued: standing floodwater and a separate breached levee kept their community under evacuation in the overnight updates available early September 30.⁠20⁠110

Salem, Garfield, Hatch and Placitas were cleared to return as weather improved late September 29, 2026. Earlier that evening, Doña Ana County reported that a small internal erosion problem at McLeod Dam had been mitigated. Those were consequential improvements, but neither permission to return nor the intervention at the dam amounted to a final engineering all-clear.⁠9⁠14

The distinction matters beyond one valley. Southwest flooding has already forced evacuations and rescues, while a substantial Texas rainfall threat still lay ahead in the early Wednesday assessment. The story is now one of uneven relief: some households can return, one community remains displaced, and another region is preparing for repeated rain.

What changed at the dam

McLeod Dam, also known locally as Garfield Dam, sits on McLeod Arroyo near Garfield in northwestern Doña Ana County. Between approximately 1:47 and 2:01 p.m. Mountain Daylight Time Tuesday, operators and county officials warned of imminent failure. Several retention dams in the Hatch Valley were nearly full, with intense runoff increasing the downstream danger.⁠14⁠16⁠8

The initial flash-flood emergency covered rural ground between Garfield and Salem, including Highways 187 and 390 and irrigation drains. Emergency language described a “particularly dangerous situation” and instructed people to “seek higher ground now.” Coverage later extended through the Hatch Valley between the Sierra County line and Rincon.⁠16⁠8

Families in Salem, Garfield and Rincon were told to leave during the afternoon; Hatch and then Placitas were added in the evening. The county's initial notice strongly encouraged immediate evacuation in Salem and Garfield and identified reception sites at the Radium Springs Community Resource Center, 12060 Lindbeck Road, and the Doña Ana Community Resource Center, 5745 Ledesma Drive. The Red Cross was dispatched to assist at Radium Springs.⁠5⁠4⁠18

Residents were urged to take medicines, limited essentials and pets, head toward safer locations using Interstate 25, and avoid flooded roads and low-water crossings. Highway 187 near Salem and Garfield was closed by water and debris. Leaving meant acting before households could know whether floodwater would reach their homes—the purpose, and the hardship, of an urgent evacuation.⁠18⁠28

At about 8:30 p.m., county spokesperson Ariana Parra described “a very small piping failure” that had been mitigated, according to the Albuquerque Journal. Pumps were on their way to lower the water level and pressure.⁠14

No water is exiting from the dam at this point.

Ariana Parra, Doña Ana County spokesperson 14

Piping describes internal erosion associated with water moving through or beneath a structure. Parra's account does not establish a completed breach through the dam body. Earlier descriptions of water coming over the top likewise did not prove that the dam had collapsed. Further rain and renewed overtopping remained concerns.⁠14

Rincon faced a separate problem: a breached Rincon Arroyo levee near the water plant, along with standing floodwater. That helped explain why its evacuation continued even after the reported mitigation at McLeod. A levee breach in Rincon is not evidence that McLeod Dam itself collapsed.⁠110⁠20

The four return orders came late Tuesday as weather improved and the immediate prospect of substantial additional rain diminished. The Las Cruces Sun-News placed the announcement around 10:20 p.m.; KTSM described it as shortly before 11 p.m. The exact minute remains unreconciled, but both accounts establish the consequential change: four communities could return, while Rincon remained evacuated.⁠9⁠20

Rescues across a wet Southwest

Tropical moisture associated with Hurricane Polo's remnants helped drive the regional flooding, with previously wet ground increasing runoff. But neither the damage nor the rainfall can be captured honestly by one Southwest-wide number.⁠68⁠66

Tuesday morning in Tonopah, west of Phoenix, a man stood on the roof of a silver Toyota Tacoma lying on its side in floodwater near 327th Avenue and Salome Highway. A Maricopa County Sheriff's Office aviation crew extracted him by helicopter. Matching local NBC and ABC coverage identifies the same overturned pickup and extraction—not two separate helicopter rescues.⁠86⁠87

The sheriff's office reported three people rescued from flooded roads in Tonopah and New River that morning: the helicopter extraction and two New River vehicle assists. The Tonopah man's medical outcome is less clear. Early September 29 accounts from AZFamily and ABC15 described transport or hospitalization with his condition unspecified; later 12 News coverage described him as unhurt and safe that evening. The later reporting updates the early uncertainty, but a hospital admission or injury diagnosis has not been reconciled.⁠42⁠103⁠86

The Las Vegas drainage-tunnel rescue involved a different man, agency and day. Clark County firefighters responded late Monday, September 28, near Twain and Eastern avenues after a man fell from a bridge into fast-moving water and a tunnel. After rope-bag attempts failed, a technical team used a high-point rope system to raise him and a rescue technician. He was assessed at the scene and released. September 29 was the local publication date, not the established rescue date.⁠49⁠52

Measured rainfall also varies by location and clock. A volunteer gauge at Bullhead City 3.8 NE recorded 2.34 inches by 7 a.m. September 29, covering approximately the preceding 24 hours. At the different Laughlin–Bullhead airport station, local-calendar-day totals were 0.72 inches September 28 and 0.30 inches September 29. Their arithmetic sum is 1.02 inches, not a separately issued official storm total or a directly comparable reading from the volunteer site. A verified rainfall accumulation at McLeod Dam remains unavailable.⁠125⁠124

The national alert estimates require similar care. In their September 29 broadcasts, published September 30, NBC News reported 25 million people under flood alerts from Arizona toward Texas and Iowa; ABC News reported more than 30 million under broader weather alerts from Arizona to Iowa. Different alert categories, areas or moments can produce different totals. These figures cannot be added together or treated as a verified increase.⁠1⁠2⁠3

Texas faces the next rainfall test

For south-central Texas, the more specific National Weather Service forecast calls for widespread event totals of two to four inches, with isolated totals up to approximately eight inches. The flood watch runs from 7 p.m. Central Daylight Time Wednesday, September 30, to 7 p.m. Friday, October 2. The heaviest threat is Wednesday night through Friday, especially Thursday and Thursday night, as a front and tropical moisture favor repeated rain.⁠141⁠114⁠82

NBC's earlier forecast allowed up to seven inches in parts of central Texas beginning Wednesday. That was not seven inches already measured, nor a claim that it would all fall Wednesday alone. No measured seven-inch total has been verified for this event in the early Wednesday reporting. Strong or severe wind and hail also remained forecast hazards, particularly Wednesday night through Friday morning—not established reports of damage already occurring.⁠1⁠59⁠112

The practical lesson from the Hatch Valley is not that warnings were unnecessary because most residents later received permission to return. It is that conditions changed—and the response changed with them. Relief in four communities does not erase Rincon's flooding, certify the dam's long-term security or resolve the rain still forecast for Texas.

தெரிந்தவை

  • Four Hatch Valley communities were cleared to return late September 29; Rincon remained evacuated. The county reported mitigation of a small piping failure at McLeod Dam. 2014

தெரியாதவை

  • No later Rincon evacuation rescission, final dam inspection, complete property-damage assessment or regional casualty tally has been established.

அடுத்து

  • Whether Rincon's floodwater recedes enough for residents to return, inspection confirms the dam is secure, and repeated Texas rain through Friday produces the flooding still forecast.

ஆதாரங்கள்106

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ஒளிபரப்பானபடி
  1. Floodwater breached Rincon's levee, and residents still cannot return home. Four neighboring communities have permission to return after a dam-failure scare, but that does not establish that the dam is permanently secure. What has changed enough to let people return, and where does the danger remain?
  2. Four communities were cleared to return late September twenty-ninth: Salem, Garfield, Hatch and Placitas. Weather improved, and the immediate prospect of substantial additional rain diminished. Rincon's evacuation remained in effect in the overnight updates available early September thirtieth. The lifting announcement is placed around ten-twenty or shortly before eleven at night, but its exact minute is unresolved. An article's update time is not necessarily the time an evacuation order changed.
  3. A small piping failure at McLeod Dam was reported mitigated by about eight-thirty that evening. Pumps were on their way to lower the water level and pressure. That was a consequential change from the afternoon warning of imminent failure, not a final engineering verdict.
  4. Water was no longer exiting the dam at that point. Piping means internal erosion associated with water moving through or beneath a structure. It does not, by itself, establish a completed breach through the entire dam body. Earlier water coming over the top also did not prove that the dam had collapsed. More rain and renewed overtopping remained concerns.
  5. A separate levee breach near Rincon's water plant and standing floodwater helped keep that community evacuated. That levee is not McLeod Dam, and its breach is not evidence that the dam collapsed. McLeod, also called Garfield Dam locally, sits on McLeod Arroyo near Garfield in northwestern Doña Ana County. Its precise coordinates and official identification number remain unavailable. Several retention dams in the Hatch Valley were nearly full while intense runoff increased the downstream danger.
  6. Highway one-eighty-seven near Salem and Garfield closed because of water and debris. The initial flash-flood emergency covered rural ground between Garfield and Salem, including Highways one-eighty-seven and three-ninety and irrigation drains. It carried instructions to seek higher ground immediately and described a particularly dangerous situation. Coverage later extended through the Hatch Valley between the Sierra County line and Rincon.
  7. Families in Salem, Garfield and Rincon were told to leave during the afternoon; Hatch and then Placitas were added that evening. Hatch has approximately fifteen hundred to sixteen hundred residents. That is a population estimate, not the number who evacuated. No verified count establishes how many people left, used shelters or stayed home.
  8. The initial county notice strongly encouraged Salem and Garfield residents to evacuate immediately. It identified reception sites at the Radium Springs Community Resource Center, twelve thousand sixty Lindbeck Road, and the Doña Ana Community Resource Center, fifty-seven forty-five Ledesma Drive. The Red Cross was dispatched to Radium Springs. Residents were directed toward Interstate twenty-five and safer locations, avoiding flooded roads and low-water crossings, and urged to take medicines, limited essentials and pets rather than wait for conditions to worsen.
  9. The evening emergency warning also changed. At six-fifty-nine Mountain Daylight Time, the emergency for Hatch, Salem and Placitas was set to last until eight-forty-five. After that expiry, later warning coverage narrowed to Radium Springs and Rincon, first through eleven-thirty at night, then one-thirty in the morning. The earlier emergency is not a current warning, and none of those notices confirms a full dam breach.
  10. The national alert estimates span twenty-five million people under flood alerts and more than thirty million under weather alerts. Those are different categories, potentially covering different areas or moments. They cannot be added together, treated as a settled official census, or described as a verified increase. Weather alerts are broader than flood alerts; the two accounts have not been independently reconciled.
  11. A wider forecast put approximately thirty-three million people in Tuesday's Southwest and Central Plains flood-threat footprint, and one hundred fifty million across more than thirty states in the weeklong footprint. Those describe forecast exposure, not independently verified populations under active flood warnings. Likewise, the regional significant-flash-flood risk of level three on a four-level scale is a forecast assessment—not flood depth and not the probability that a particular dam will fail.
  12. Three people were rescued from flooded roads in Tonopah and New River that morning. The helicopter extraction involved one man in Tonopah, west of Phoenix—not inside western Phoenix city limits. The other two were New River vehicle assists. Multiple descriptions of the same helicopter extraction do not establish multiple rescues.
  13. The Tonopah man stood on the roof of a silver Toyota Tacoma lying on its side in floodwater, approximately thirty feet from shore, near three-hundred-twenty-seventh Avenue and Salome Highway. The road was also described as three-hundred-twenty-seventh Drive. The extraction happened around eight-thirty on September twenty-ninth, with another description placing it just after eight. A sheriff's aviation crew used a helicopter long-line or hoist; the crew included pilot Rich Dickner and hoist technician Lindsey Smith.
  14. The New River assists included a box-truck incident in a wash whose driver got out, and another stuck vehicle near nineteenth Avenue and Irvine. The Tonopah man's medical outcome remains unsettled: early descriptions said he was transported or hospitalized, with his condition unspecified; later descriptions said he was not hurt, was safe that evening or did not need a hospital. His rescue is established, but a hospital admission, injury diagnosis and reconciled medical outcome are not.
  15. A man rescued from a Las Vegas drainage tunnel was a different person, rescued by a different agency on a different day. Clark County firefighters responded late Monday, September twenty-eighth, near Twain and Eastern avenues after he fell from a bridge into fast-moving water and the tunnel. Initial rope-bag attempts failed. A technical rescue team used a high-point rope system to raise both the man and a rescue technician. He was assessed at the scene and released. The official response time was approximately ten-oh-four at night; another account placed it just after eleven. September twenty-ninth was the publication date, not the established rescue date.
  16. A volunteer gauge northeast of Bullhead City recorded two-point-three-four inches by seven in the morning September twenty-ninth, over roughly the preceding twenty-four hours. Its observer reported no flooding at that particular site. A different airport station recorded zero-point-seven-two inches on September twenty-eighth and zero-point-three-zero on September twenty-ninth, using local calendar days. Adding those gives one-point-zero-two inches, but that arithmetic is not a separately issued official storm total. Different locations and observation windows prevent a direct comparison without those qualifications.
  17. The three-point-nine-one-inch figure was a September monthly total at another volunteer station, not an established accumulation from this storm. A claimed one-point-nine-one-inch Bullhead City reading at twelve-fifteen in the morning September twenty-ninth was not established as an event measurement.
  18. The widespread one-to-three-inch figure, with locally more than five inches, was a northern New Mexico and mountain forecast—not measured rainfall at McLeod Dam or across Doña Ana County. That forecast discussion was updated at five-fifty-four Mountain Daylight Time, with key messages at five-fifty-one. A separate nine-forty morning precipitation report covered prior twenty-four-hour observations, including Albuquerque-area readings above one or two inches. It did not turn the later forecast into an observed total. A verified dam-area accumulation and measurement period remain unavailable.
  19. Previously wet ground increased runoff as tropical moisture associated with Hurricane Polo's remnants moved through the region. The next major exposure is Texas, where much of the rainfall threat still lay ahead in the early September thirtieth assessment.
  20. South-central Texas could receive widespread event totals of two to four inches, with isolated totals near eight inches. The flood watch runs from seven Wednesday evening, September thirtieth, through seven Friday evening, October second, Central Daylight Time. The heaviest threat is Wednesday night through Friday, especially Thursday and Thursday night, as a front and tropical moisture favor repeated rain. The exact claimed Tuesday morning issuance time has not been established.
  21. The earlier central Texas forecast allowed up to seven inches beginning Wednesday. It did not mean seven inches had fallen, or that all seven would fall Wednesday alone. No measured seven-inch total has been verified for this event. Damaging winds were also a forecast possibility, initially for Wednesday afternoon and evening; later discussion emphasizes strong or severe wind and hail with storms Wednesday night through Friday morning. That is not an established report of wind damage already occurring.
  22. Early Wednesday daytime forecasts give south or southeast winds of ten to fifteen miles an hour, gusting around twenty-five, along the Austin–San Antonio Interstate thirty-five corridor. Parts of the Hill Country and west-central area have fifteen-to-twenty-mile-an-hour winds, gusting around thirty. Those ordinary forecast winds are not interchangeable with a verified severe-thunderstorm damage report.
  23. The partial return answers the immediate question only in part: improved weather allowed four communities to return, while floodwater and a separate levee breach kept Rincon evacuated. A final engineering all-clear for McLeod Dam is not yet confirmed. There is no established later lifting of Rincon's order, complete property-damage assessment or regional casualty tally. Texas's isolated seven-to-eight-inch rainfall figures remain forecasts, with the watch extending through Friday evening.

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