RUIDOSO, New Mexico (KTSM) — More than two months later and the Village of Ruidoso continues to show its resilience in the wake of two major wildfires and continuous flooding.
The mayor of the village, Lynn Crawford, has been a key player in navigating the disaster. From providing updates to the community via multiple social mediums to working with state and federal agencies for relief, he says throughout his two terms as mayor he has never dealt with something at this caliber.
“This is historic. It’s unprecedented. We’ve had small fires here before. We had a big one 12 years ago, the little bear. So, it’s just hard to plan for this kind of things. When you’re drowning, you know nothing’s fast enough. You know, and when someone’s trying to save a life, every second counts,” said Crawford.
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The South Fork and Salt fires are responsible for burning over 25,000 acres of land and destroying thousands of structures. Crawford says navigating to normalcy has been an obstacle in itself.
“It’s frustrating because of bureaucracy, an ocean of red tape. The local folks that we have, I know they’re really working hard to get these things done and a lot of the decisions that we need to be made were made in Washington, D.C. or at other levels. We need those to really speed up. We are working with our folks in the state and also in the county, because there are no defensible space ordinances, we do have them. Those ordinances look at building materials, also speeding up planning approval and everything through the construction industry division, working on planning reviews to get those in and get those out as quickly as the lots are cleared and safe to be built on so that we can get these people back in their homes as soon as possible. But it’s going to be a while,” said Crawford.
On top of reopening roads, fixing bridges and removing debris, Ruidoso’s main opposition is an annual weather pattern.
Crawford said: “As you can well imagine, every time we have a flood, it changes the course of the river and the floodplain. So, these are things that are so difficult. Unfortunately, we’re told that we’re not going to be able to really make a lot of headway on that until after monsoons.”
With the erosion and debris brought on by fast-moving floodwaters, key tourist attractions that Ruidoso relies on to drive the economy were highly impacted.
“We’ve totally lost the racetrack at this point. We’ve had to move all of our big stake’s races and everything to Albuquerque. So, a lot of the business that goes along with it, with the track is gone for the summer. Then we hear about Ski Apache, which is up on top of Sierra Blanca. The road has been damaged so bad that we don’t even know if we’re going to be able to have a ski season,” said Crawford.
Crawford’s main message to anyone looking to further assist the village and its residents very simple: “A lot has happened. A lot is starting to happen as far as recovery efforts, you know, restoration and recovery. A lot needs to happen, so we need you to come in, sit down with our businesses, listen to the stories, talk to the people, and be helpful to them. That’s what’s going to get us through this.”
If you’d like to donate or apply for assistance, the Community Foundation of Lincoln County has more information on resources.
