As many as 200 homes damaged as officials survey the aftermath of a deadly New Mexico flood — Morgan Lee, Susan Montoya Bryan, Associated Press
At least 200 homes were damaged during a deadly flash flood in the mountain village of Ruidoso, and local emergency managers warned Wednesday that number could more than double as teams survey more neighborhoods.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham was among the officials who took an aerial tour of Ruidoso and the surrounding area as they looked to bolster their case for more federal assistance for the community, which has been battered over the past year by wildfires and repeated flooding.
The governor said the state has received partial approval for a federal emergency declaration, freeing up personnel to help with search and rescue efforts and incident management. She called it the first step, saying Ruidoso will need much more.
"We will continue working with the federal government for every dollar and resource necessary to help this resilient community fully recover from these devastating floods," she said.
An intense bout of monsoon rains set the disaster in motion Tuesday afternoon. Water rushed from the surrounding mountainside, overwhelming the Rio Ruidoso and taking with it a man and two children who had been camping at a riverside RV park. Their bodies were found downstream. All other people who went missing are now accounted for.
Lujan Grisham expressed condolences and wished a speedy recovery for the parents of a 4-year-old girl and 7-year-old boy who were killed. She said it will be an emotional journey.
"There are no words that can take away that devastation," she said. "We are truly heartsick."
Congresswoman Melanie Stansbury, whose district includes Ruidoso and surrounding Lincoln County, told reporters more rain is coming and that residents remain at risk. She urged people to follow emergency orders, saying "we cannot lose another life."
A COMMUNITY REBUILDS — AGAIN
Broken tree limbs, twisted metal, crumpled cars and muddy debris remain as crews work to clear roads and culverts wrecked by the flooding.
Tracy Haragan, a lifelong Ruidoso resident on the verge of retirement, watched from his home as a surging river carried away the contents of nine nearby residences.
"You watched everything they owned, everything they had — everything went down," he said.
A popular summer retreat, Ruidoso is no stranger to tragedy. It has spent a year rebuilding following destructive wildfires last summer and the flooding that followed.
This time, the floodwaters went even higher, with the Rio Ruidoso rising more than 20 feet (6 meters) on Tuesday to set a record. Officials said the area received about 3.5 inches (9 centimeters) of rain over the South Fork burn scar in just an hour and a half.
"It is such a great town, it just takes a tail-whipping every once in a while," Haragan said. "We always survive."
SUCKED INTO THE FLOODWATERS
Stephanie and Sebastian Trotter were camping along a stream with their son Sebastian, 7, and daughter Charlotte, 4, when the campsite began to flood rapidly, the children's uncle Hank Wyatt said on a verified GoFundMe page for the family.
Their RV was nearly halfway full of water when the wall cracked, and Stephanie and the children were sucked into the floodwaters, he said. The father dove into the water and tried to help his son climb up a tree, while the mother and daughter floated downstream, clinging to each other until debris hit and separated them.
Both children and two of the family's dogs, Zeus and Ellie, died. The parents survived but were seriously injured.
The children were "two of the brightest, most joyful souls you could ever meet," Wyatt said. "This is the worst day of our family's lives."
Other people barely escaped.
Arnold Duke, the owner of Ruidoso Trading Post, spent all day Wednesday digging for Native American jewelry in the mud after floodwaters rushed through a warehouse. Three workers fled, leaving cellphones and purses behind.
"If they had stayed another minute, I don't know if they would have made it out," Duke said.
REQUESTS FOR AID
The Rio Ruidoso runs thick with sediment that can settle and raise water levels. Stansbury said the community would need help for the next decade after suffering successive catastrophes.
Lujan Grisham said the federal government likely will advance $15 million to jumpstart recovery efforts. That amount could climb to more than $100 million in the coming months as Ruidoso tries to rebuild and mitigate future floods.
After the 2024 flooding, Ruidoso deployed money from the state and U.S. Department of Agriculture to blunt the impact of flooding by removing river sediment, seeding new plants, installing grates to catch bridge-smashing debris and creating flood barriers out of baskets filled with rocks and earth to channel water away from structures.
Ruidoso Deputy Manager Michael Martinez said those improvements likely saved homes, bridges and lives. But funding was exhausted by early June, when the village requested another $12 million in federal support. Approval was still pending when Tuesday's flood hit.
"We would have desilted (more) portions of the river. Would that have made a difference?" Martinez said. "I think from a mitigation standpoint it might have helped a little bit, but ... the rains that we got were a 100-year-flood-level rain. It wasn't just regular flash flooding."
Additionally, Ruidoso and surrounding Lincoln County are advancing a proposal for federal support to convert flood-prone private land to public property, at an initial cost of over $100 million.
The governor said officials need to rethink how to spend funds to reduce the flood risk, and restore watersheds and forests. The mayor underscored that the flooding had damaged water lines and distribution points for potable drinking water.
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Bryan reported from Albuquerque. Associated Press writers Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City, Matthew Brown in Denver, Christopher L. Keller in Albuquerque and Roberto E. Rosales in Ruidoso contributed.
Second lawyer pleads guilty to extortion in Albuquerque police DWI corruption case — Colleen Heild, Albuquerque Journal
A second prominent attorney has pleaded guilty to a federal extortion charge in paying off an Albuquerque police officer in 2023 to help get a client’s drunken driving case dismissed.
The attorney, Rudolph “Rudy” Chavez, also pleaded guilty Thursday to lying to FBI agents investigating the payoff in March 2024, according to federal records.
His is the latest in a series of guilty pleas this year as part of a criminal scheme that has resulted in the dismissal of dozens, if not hundreds, of DWI cases in Albuquerque since the mid-1990s.
Court records show Chavez sometimes teamed up on DWI cases with the creator of the bribery/extortion conspiracy, now-disbarred DWI defense attorney Thomas Clear III. Clear, his former legal assistant Ricardo Mendez, and eight law enforcement officers, all of whom have retired or resigned, have entered guilty pleas. None have been sentenced, as the FBI continues its investigation.
Chavez admitted in his plea agreement he contacted Clear’s assistant, Mendez, after he was hired by a client who had been arrested in April 2023 by Albuquerque Police Department DWI officer Honorio Alba Jr. Through Mendez, Chavez paid an undisclosed amount of money to Alba for intentionally failing to appear in court on the DWI case.
“I admit that when coordinating the scheme, I knew that Alba was a necessary witness and because Alba planned to fail to appear, I knew that the case and proceedings would likely be dismissed,” Chavez stated in his plea agreement filed in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque.
The trial for the defendant in the drunken driving case was set for Jan. 17, 2024, but Alba had contacted the 2nd Judicial District Attorney’s Office that day to say he “had worked the night before and was too tired to attend the court setting...” So the DA’s office dismissed the case.
Chavez’s plea agreement states he agreed to be interviewed by FBI agents on March 26, 2024, and was warned of the potential criminal consequences of lying to federal law enforcement officers. Chavez admitted he had falsely told the agents he had no advance knowledge Alba planned to fail to appear for trial.
No date has been set for Chavez’s sentencing.
Chavez accepted an indefinite suspension of his license to practice law by the state Supreme Court in April after previously denying any criminal involvement in the scheme. Neither he nor his attorney could be immediately reached for comment for this story.
Aside from his 40-plus years as an attorney, Chavez is a well-known fan of University of New Mexico Lobo sports.
A Lobo fan who has also been a financial contributor to Lobo athletics for years, Chavez is also arguably the loudest Lobo fan and referee critic in the Pit, where he has had season tickets for decades. He often travels to games and to the Mountain West basketball tournament in Las Vegas, Nevada, each March.
Chavez is also on the Executive Committee of the New Mexico Bowl.
Journal staff writer Geoff Grammer contributed to this report. Colleen Heild is an investigative reporter. She also writes about CYFD and Federal courts. You can reach her at cheild@abqjournal.com.
NM judiciary suggests lawmakers create state court marshals service — Austin Fisher, Source New Mexico
On Jan. 30, 2023, a person facing criminal charges in New Mexico texted the judge in their case: “I will see you at your next yard sale, I know where you live.”
In August the same year, another person texted a judge: “Either you accept it or you fight me old man…if you refuse to step down…this is war.”
More recently, police allege 50-year-old Francisco Benjamin Cabral, of Farmington followed Eleventh Judicial District Court Judge Bradford Dalley in his car before approaching Dalley’s vehicle and screaming: “You’re dead, I am going to kill you.” He is scheduled to head to trial this summer.
An official with New Mexico’s judicial branch recently cited these and other examples of violent threats against judges and court staff as reasons to consider creating an internal security force for the courts rather than relying on local police.
So far this year, judges have faced 162 threats, some tied to high-profile cases, according to Cynthia Pacheco, director of the Court Operations Division at the state Administrative Office of the Courts, who delivered a presentation recently to members of the interim legislative Courts, Corrections and Justice Committee. Most did not result in charges because judges didn’t want to make a complaint, or the callers couldn’t be identified, she said.
State prosecutors thus far in 2025 have filed four criminal cases for threatening a judge or their immediate family members under the new law. Prosecutors filed five such cases last year, and three in 2023.
A law passed in 2022 that made it a felony to threaten a judge or a judge’s immediate family member has resulted in a few convictions thus far — such as the two examples cited from 2023 — but Pacheco told lawmakers it’s “too soon to know if that law is having an impact, it’s just been a couple years. We’re just beginning to charge and take those to trial.”
Staff receive the majority of threats because they’re the ones who answer the phones and work at the front, she said.
Angry people have allegedly told bailiffs and court clerks that someone would be waiting for them outside when they leave their shifts, threatened to bomb their workplaces, posted their home addresses online and threatened them with sexual violence, Pacheco told Source NM.
Between July 2024 and the end of June 2025, defendants, victims or their families have threatened court staff in New Mexico on 10 different occasions, 17 times in the previous year and 13 times the year before that, according to AOC data.
The data also shows a total of 32 threats against court buildings over those three years, along with a growing number of medical episodes in courthouses. Pacheco said most of these are drug overdoses, and that judges and court staff are trained to administer the overdose-reversing drug known as Narcan.
Court staff and judges who are subject to particularly egregious threats can receive mental health services provided by AOC’s employee assistance program, she said.
With growing incidents, Pacheco told lawmakers judicial officials believe a discussion needs to occur about whether it’s time for the state’s judicial branch to have court marshals, similar to the U.S. Marshals Service’s role in the federal court system.
She also noted the judicial branch in the most recent session had requested $25 million for security upgrades but only received $6 million. The judiciary will use the money to upgrade courts in Catron, Cibola, De Baca, Harding, Hidalgo, Rio Arriba, Sandoval, Santa Fe and Union counties, she said.
But she said her agency wants every courthouse in the state to have magnetometers, X-ray machines, access control, duress alarms and surveillance systems.
After those come online, she said, AOC wants to install advanced physical security like modern secure entrances called sally ports, windows treated to resist bullets, hardened clerical counters and the ability to lock down a building without having to run and physically lock every door.
But even if the courts had all that, they would still need security officers present during business hours, Pacheco said.
“Right now, that is not the standard in any courtroom, anywhere in New Mexico,” she said.
She said her agency has started talking with court systems in Oregon and Maine that have established their own state court marshals.
“Court security is a really specialized field because we want people to come to the courts, the courts should be inviting for people who are seeking justice,” Pacheco said in an interview with Source. “But we also have to make sure that everyone is safe.”
Committee Chair Sen. Joseph Cervantes (D-Las Cruces) had questions for Pacheco about staffing an internal service and how she thought it would differ from using sheriff’s deputies.
“If we had an internal service, we would also be in a better position to train them for public interaction in a way that’s different than how law enforcement operates,” she said.
Water managers brace for dry conditions along sections of the Rio Grande — NM.news
Water managers across the middle Rio Grande Valley in New Mexico are coordinating efforts in anticipation of a dry 2025 season, which will likely cause sections of the river to run dry. This follows a trend seen in Albuquerque, where the Rio Grande dried up for the first time in 40 years in 2022.
While agencies are working collectively to mitigate impacts, each faces unique challenges and responsibilities in managing the changing river conditions.
Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District (MRGCD): This year’s below-average snowpack and the District’s inability to store native Rio Grande water have created a challenging year for farmers in the middle Rio Grande Valley. MRGCD water managers have transitioned to rotational scheduling for all divisions, with deliveries dependent on supply, demand and efficiency.
“Our focus remains on maintaining equitable irrigation deliveries throughout the District, which becomes increasingly difficult as water supplies decline. Farmers should prepare for little to no water availability during summer and fall if seasonal rainfall does not return,” said Jason Casuga, MRGCD chief engineer and CEO. “Collaboration with other water stakeholder agencies is critical to our operations and our mission.”
Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority: Klarissa Peña, Chair of the Water Authority’s governing board and City Council Vice President, said that the use of surface water from the San Juan-Chama Project, delivered via the Rio Grande, is the foundation of the Water Authority’s long-term supply strategy, WATER 2120.
“When river flows are low or non-existent, the utility must turn to its groundwater reserves to meet customer demand,” Peña said. “We are fortunate to have those reserves available, but we must do all we can to save them for use in future droughts. That’s why the sight of a dry river should put all our customers on notice that conservation is just as important as ever.”
The Water Authority is urging users to conserve water this summer by following the Water by the Numbers program and watering just three days a week in July and August. Customers are also advised to observe time-of-day watering restrictions, using sprinkler irrigation only before 11 a.m. and after 7 p.m. Additionally, the Water Authority recommend installing rebate-qualified efficient sprinkler components and “smart” controllers, and shutting off sprinkler systems when it rains.
Bureau of Reclamation: At the start of irrigation season, all of Reclamation’s reservoirs along the Rio Chama and Rio Grande were holding less than 15% of their capacity, indicating very little water in storage to supplement this year’s river flow for irrigation, species benefits, municipalities and recreation. Despite several large and unexpected storms in May and June that assisted with flows in the Rio Grande, river flow is now declining.
River drying on the Rio Grande began on April 16 in parts of the river south of Socorro, New Mexico. While rainstorms have helped the Rio Grande reconnect down to Elephant Butte Reservoir several times since, approximately 20 miles south of Socorro remained dry as of the first week in July.
Additional monsoon rain could provide some relief, but it is likely to be a difficult year for farmers and all water users along the Rio Chama and Rio Grande.
“Reclamation will continue to work closely with the irrigation districts, Pueblos, states, other federal agencies, municipalities, and all other stakeholders to support coordinated water use aimed at achieving multiple benefits whenever possible as this megadrought continues,” said Albuquerque Area Office Manager Jennifer Faler. “We are committed to providing every drop of water available in the most efficient way we can.”
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: The Fish and Wildlife Service works to conserve, protect and enhance fish, wildlife, plants and their habitats. Under the Endangered Species Act, they protect and recover imperiled species and their ecosystems. Five threatened and endangered species live in and along the Rio Grande, including the Rio Grande Silvery Minnow.
The Fish and Wildlife Service will continue to work with all partners involved to manage water shortages to minimize effects on listed species in the Middle Rio Grande. Should the Rio Grande run dry and become intermittent, the Fish and Wildlife Service will continue efforts to rescue Rio Grande Silvery Minnow from isolated pools and return them to areas where the river remains continuous.
Ruidoso braces for possible thunderstorms on Saturday
In Ruidoso this evening, locals are preparing for the possibility of more rain and a chance for severe thunderstorms tomorrow. This forecast follows deadly flooding in the village earlier this week. On Tuesday, a flash flood of the Rio Ruidoso damaged about 400 homes and caused the deaths of two children and one adult. Runoff from a burn scar from last year’s wildfires caused the river to rise more than 20 feet. Ruidoso Emergency Manager Eric Queller says if tomorrow’s possible storms dump rain in the same area, more flooding could occur.
This year’s monsoon season comes as New Mexico National Weather Service forecast offices are short-staffed due to federal cuts. The Albuquerque office currently employs 10 meteorologists. That’s five meteorologists fewer than it would need to be fully staffed. Overall, the vacancy rate for all staff at the Albuquerque National Weather Service office sits at 33 percent. That’s more than twice the vacancy rate at the office prior to the current Trump administration. The Albuquerque office provides forecasts and warning statements for most of New Mexico, including Ruidoso.
Nationwide, the National Weather Service has lost about 15 percent of its employees as a result of federal cuts. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York has asked for the U.S. Commerce Department inspector general to investigate whether vacancies at the agency contributed to the loss of life and property during the catastrophic flooding in Central Texas earlier this month.