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Residents were glued to the windows at a riverside brewery in Ruidoso, New Mexico, as a flash flood swept through town, carrying rocks and debris.
Nervous chatter filled the taproom at Downshift Brewing Company, where about 50 people were sheltering from monsoon rains that caused the Rio Ruidoso to swell to more than six metres on Tuesday, a tentative record.
The gasps in the room grew louder as an entire house floated by, knocking down trees in its path.
The turquoise paint on the front door of the single-storey white house with brown slats was barely visible under layers of mud.
But local artist Kaitlyn Carpenter, who was filming the flooding on her phone, recognized it immediately as the family home of one of her best friends.
“I’ve been in that house and have memories in that house, so seeing it come down the river was just pretty heartbreaking,” she said. “I just couldn’t believe it.”
A symbol of flood’s destruction
No one was inside the house that day. Carpenter says her friend stays elsewhere during the summer since the mountain town is prone to flooding.
Images and video she took of the house have been widely shared as a stark symbol of the flood’s destruction.
Three people at a riverside RV park died after being swept away in the river, including two children. Dozens of homes have been damaged, and streets were clogged with mud and debris.
Farther down the river, pieces of metal and other debris were twisted around tree trunks.
Broken tree limbs were wedged against homes and piled on porches. The water was thick with sediment and many roads remained closed Wednesday.
The popular summer destination has been especially vulnerable to flooding since last summer, when the South Fork and Salt fires raced across tinder-dry forest and destroyed hundreds of homes. Residents were forced to flee a wall of flames, only to grapple with intense flooding later that summer.
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