Last weekend, communities surrounding the San Juan River were sent an evacuation notice by the Navajo Police Department, urging them to prepare to be away from their homes for multiple days as flooding conditions worsened.
Those evacuations came just over a month after three individuals, including one child, were swept away and killed by floodwaters on the Navajo Nation.
The flooding crisis began in mid-September as monsoonal rains hit the Four Corners region. But Principle Hydrologist of the Navajo Nation Crystal Tulley-Cordova said the rain isn’t the problem.
“We have experienced impacts of drought throughout the Navajo Nation," she said. "When you have really dry soils, the land is similar to a pavement, the water just runs off and runs into the road.”
Roughly 85% of Navajo Nation roadways are unpaved, composed of dirt and/or gravel. The extreme flooding causes mass erosion, rendering these unpaved roads unusable.
Adding to flood risk, the San Juan River flows through several communities in southeastern Utah. On Friday, Oct. 23, the water rose to 14 feet — growing 13 times larger in 36 hours and breaking the record held since 1909.
As the area remains under flood warning, officials at Utah State University Blanding are offering their help.
Ken Guan is the president of USU Blanding. He said the university is working with San Juan County to help rebuild after the flooding ceases.
“We're bringing our equipment, expertise, and our labor to go into the nation, to help the local community, to rebuild the roads, and also do 3D geomapping for the local community," he said.
Clean up and rebuilding efforts typically begin one to two weeks after water recedes or is extracted and safety inspections have commenced. But with the ongoing flood conditions, rebuilding efforts have yet to begin.
Guan said he believes the project will take at least another three months.
“From the planning to the first phase and going in to discover accessible routes and to see any foreseeable barriers, and then we'll need to have another round of planning to make sure that we have the capacity, we have the personnel, the timings aligned, the the people are aligned as well," he said. "Then the winter will hit, so I don't know if that would delay our project.”
Guan said he’ll be communicating with county officials throughout the process.
“I'm looking forward to a lot of collaboration, to have this close conversation with the county, with the tribal nation," Guan said, "so that we can devote our resources to support a community until the project's finished.”
