On Tuesday, September 29, 2026, that hope turned into a crisis. As Alanis watched from her property in Southern New Mexico, floodwaters poured over the top of the McLeod Dam, a 25-foot earthen structure designed to mitigate flooding near her pecan tree farm. The water, carrying debris from the mountains, rushed through the area, submerging farmland and employee housing. The scene was captured in video that circulated rapidly, showing the dam’s surface breached by the sheer volume of water.
The immediate consequence was an evacuation order for residents of Rincon, Hatch, Salem, Garfield, and Placitas. Doña Ana County emergency management officials issued the directive after the National Weather Service (NWS) in Albuquerque confirmed reports of “imminent failure” of the dam. The threat was compounded by a flash flood emergency order issued by the NWS in El Paso, valid until 4:45 p.m. Tuesday.
This local emergency unfolded against the backdrop of a broader meteorological event. The intense rainfall was the second day of a multi-day flood threat fueled by Hurricane Polo to the south. NWS meteorologist Todd Shoemaker explained the severity of the situation, noting that a flash flood emergency is the highest level of alert. “If there’s a really heightened sense of potential for property loss and impact to life, we’ll issue a flash flood emergency… So, it’s a particularly dangerous situation,” Shoemaker said.
The vulnerability of the McLeod Dam was not accidental but structural and administrative. According to the National Inventory of Dams, the structure holds back approximately 750 acre-feet of water. However, the most recent inspection conducted in 2023 classified the dam as being in “poor” condition with a “high potential hazard” rating. Crucially, the records indicated that no emergency action plan was in place for the facility. This lack of preparedness, combined with the extreme precipitation, created a scenario where the infrastructure’s capacity was overwhelmed almost immediately upon the onset of heavy rains.
As the water levels rose, the human impact became immediate and tangible. Alanis picked up her daughter from Garfield Elementary School around 1 p.m., a time just before the evacuation orders began to cascade through the county. By the time the alerts reached the public, the water was already flowing over the dam. “It’s just covered in debris from the mountains and all of the water that kind of rushed through,” Alanis described.
In response, state and local agencies mobilized. State Representative Nathan Small was present at one of the evacuation points, the Radium Springs Community Resource Center, where he observed the scale of the displacement. “There is water coming over the top of some flood control facilities in that northern part of Doña Ana county. There is flooding in the village of Hatch… everyone needs to be on a higher state of awareness and caution right now,” Small said. The American Red Cross had established a shelter at the center, with Community Disaster Program Manager for Southern New Mexico Carina Gonzalez coordinating efforts. “So this is a safe and warm place for them to stay overnight so obviously they will sleep in cots for the remaining time. We will have snacks, water, just a place to come and then from there we will see what other needs arise,” Gonzalez said. At the time of her interview, between five to seven residents were sheltering there.
The meteorological context underscores the increasing frequency of such extreme events in the region. While the sources do not provide specific attribution studies for this single event, the link between the rainfall and Hurricane Polo is documented. The storm system delivered large volumes of rain over a short period, testing infrastructure that was already flagged as substandard. The incident serves as a case study in the intersection of climate-driven weather extremes and aging civil infrastructure.
By Tuesday night, the immediate threat began to subside. Doña Ana County lifted the evacuation orders for Salem, Hatch, Garfield, and Placitas, citing that storms had passed and additional large volumes of rain were not forecasted. However, the situation in Rincon remained critical. The evacuation order for Rincon residents and visitors remained in effect due to the dangers of standing floodwaters. Officials warned that conditions in the area remained unsafe and that residents who had evacuated should not return home at that time.
For Alanis, the night of September 29 was a period of tense vigilance. She reported that the dam was still standing at 6 p.m., but she planned to keep a close eye on it throughout the night. The incident left behind a landscape altered by the rush of water and debris, and a community grappling with the aftermath of a failure that was, according to infrastructure records, predictable. The coming days will likely focus on assessing the structural integrity of the McLeod Dam and reviewing the protocols that failed to prevent a full-scale evacuation despite the known “poor” condition of the facility.
