Thunder-Boomers and Gully-Washers
Ditches are Deadly – Stay Away! Find Safe Places to Swim & Play
I remember my grandfather, Natividad Luna Chavez telling me a story about a time he was up in Torreon, New Mexico in the Manzano mountains east of Albuquerque. He described how two dark rainclouds barrelled into one another, and how the water came up almost to his waist! Monsoon season in New Mexico is from June 15 to September 30. The North American Monsoon System (NAMS) brings summer precipitation to the Southwest and Intermountain West. During the monsoon, winds shift from westerly to southerly, pulling moisture from the Pacific Ocean and Gulf of Mexico. The inland U.S. state of New Mexico has experienced impacts from 81 known tropical cyclones and their remnants. My father used to call these late summer monsoon storms, gully-washers. In contrast, a thunder-boomer is a drier spectacle of light and sound - here in the high desert.
Human eddies and flows: the mid-century floods of Albuquerque
www.newspapers.com/article/albuquerque-journal/126882149/
The city created AMAFCA or the Albuquerque Metropolitan Arroyo Flood Control Authority - Protecting Life and Property since 1963
When I was about 5 years old, I recall driving home with my parents after a softball game and driving east up Copper Ave near Tramway, the remnants of a storm and flash flood were everywhere. There were branches all over the ground, and rocks and dirt covered the road. Our house was up on Pleasant Hill near the U Mountain. From our backyard, the sight of several small funnel clouds over the Manzano mountain struck absolute fear in me! My dad Fooj worked as a supervisor with the civil engineering squad, which involved the electrical and power systems and infrastructure at Kirtland Air Force Base. He would get called out to work whenever there was a big storm and the power had gone out, a bit anxiety-inducing.
In 1983 the “Ditches are Deadly – Stay Away! Find Safe Places to Swim and Play” program was developed and presented to teachers and schoolchildren all around the Albuquerque metropolitan area. When I was at Collet Park Elementary, we had an arroyo/ditch that cut through the middle of the playground! We had to walk through it! The playground is looking pretty sad these days! At least we had lots of metal playground toys, like a UFO spinning wheel of death!
In Kindergarten, there was no fence - and they would keep us near that yellow tent in the photo. Can you imagine! In first grade - a teacher would watch all the students crossing the arroyo - and then they eventually put up a fence. In second grade - a teacher would open a gate and let us walk single file through the ditch. I was always keeping a side eye upstream, to make sure there wasn’t a raging torrent of water crashing down, ditches are deadly! Eventually, in third grade - the City of Albuquerque finally built a bridge ‘The RoadRunner Runway’ and Mayor Harry Kinney was there!
On July 11, 1988, our family spent the day doing chores and planting new flowers in pots. My parents were running errands, and me and my brother had the house to ourselves. We noticed that our dog Snowball was shaking and trembling. We walked into the front yard and noticed a truly massive and ominous storm parked over the mountains at Indian School and Tramway. The rain just started coming down in buckets. My and my brother tried to recover a few of the freshly planted flower pots in the front yard, but were repulsed by hail that was the size of ping pong balls! Eventually, the entire road in front of our house was a raging river of water, consuming yards on both sides. Our backyard also had a river of water crashing down one neighbor’s broken fence, after another.
The storm must have raged for nearly an hour. It took my parents another few hours to get home. The city was wrecked. We lived above Tramway near Indian School, which was the epicenter of the storm. Everything was a mess. Our dad got called into work, so we were stuck close to home. The next morning, we took a long walk with our neighbors, around the hood. We walked near the Embudo Canyon, where you used to have to drive down to get across the ditch. There was about 15 - 20 feet of sand and dirt in the concrete arroyo. We knew there had been a fatality, and the victim’s car remained buried in the dirt. I’ll never forget when our neighbor recognized the name of one of the documents lying nearby as their family friend, Alicia Kopcznski. The city eventually built a bridge on Monte Largo Blvd.
A few years ago, I was rehearsing for a play at the Albuquerque Little Theater, when the entire building shuttered. We poked our heads out the door, and Hurricane Green Chili was raging! There was about a foot of water, and the power seemed to go off everywhere around us. There was water coming in everywhere, I thought the building was going to come down on us. The storm finally abated, and I walked home through flooded streets and branches everywhere. There was no power, so I sat with the neighbors, taking turns spinning the broken emergency light and radio. It’s good to be prepared for things. Be smart and don’t play around ditches. Just sit out on that patio, enjoy the rhythm of the falling rain, BREATHE DEEP, and soak it all in. #LaPolitica
