Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren declared a state of emergency Friday after flash flooding killed three people near Newcomb, New Mexico, damaged roads and isolated communities across the Nation. The Associated Press reported that three families were evacuated in Shiprock Friday evening as water rose near the San Juan River, while multiple roads remained closed.
The declaration turns an already deadly weather event into an extended response operation for northwestern New Mexico. Elsie Begay, her 7-year-old granddaughter Lucy Allison Mike and Begay’s friend Dora Franklin died after floodwater overtook them near Newcomb on Tuesday. An earlier AP account, based on information from Navajo police, said officers received the first report shortly after midnight Wednesday following successive rounds of heavy rain.
For residents, the emergency status is also a practical warning that normal travel assumptions no longer apply. A route that was open before the storm may now be cut by erosion, standing water or a missing culvert, even when rain has stopped nearby.
In Mexican Springs, roughly 40 miles south of Newcomb, washed-out ditches, missing culverts and damaged dirt and gravel roads left some families unable to reach their homes. The local Chapter House was converted into a temporary shelter, and volunteers used all-terrain vehicles to deliver food, water and other supplies to stranded households, according to the AP’s Friday reporting.
Travel remains the immediate concern
Nygren urged residents to use alternate routes, check on elders and follow emergency personnel’s directions. That guidance is particularly important where pavement ends: the Mexican Springs Chapter identifies the community as being 18 miles north of Gallup near U.S. Highway 491, but many homes are reached by local unpaved roads that can remain impassable after the main highway reopens.
Residents should not treat standing water as evidence that a crossing is safe. Federal emergency guidance warns people under a flood warning to seek safe shelter immediately and never walk, swim or drive through floodwater. Ready.gov notes that six inches of moving water can knock a person down and advises drivers to turn around rather than attempt a flooded roadway.
The three deaths underscore how quickly a late-season monsoon surge can become lethal. The first AP report said the National Weather Service had warned of widespread thunderstorms and excessive rainfall across the Four Corners, including northwestern New Mexico, before the fatal flooding. The later emergency declaration indicates the danger did not end when the heaviest rain moved away: damaged roads, isolated households and continued high water created a second phase of risk.
For people trying to reach relatives, the safest course is to confirm local road conditions through Navajo emergency authorities or chapter officials before traveling, avoid unofficial shortcuts and allow responders access to damaged routes. Residents in immediate danger should call emergency services and move to higher ground without crossing flowing water.
