{"id":26996,"date":"2024-06-24T21:58:00","date_gmt":"2024-06-24T21:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/update-major-storm-hits-san-juan-county\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T05:49:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T05:49:12","slug":"update-major-storm-hits-san-juan-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/update-major-storm-hits-san-juan-county\/","title":{"rendered":"Update: Major storm hits San Juan County"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"An
An arroyo next to Farmer\u2019s Ditch in Flora Vista flowed over the banks at 6:57 p.m. on Friday evening. (David Edward Albright\/Tri-City Record)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Over the weekend, communities in the San Juan County and Navajo Nation experienced a substantial amount of rainfall that left power outages and road wreckage. High winds, heavy rain and hail caused utility and communications failure and extensive property damage.<\/p>\n

Devin Neeley, San Juan County public relations\/film manager, stated in an email Friday that storms caused phone and internet service to fail at many county facilities. Included were the San Juan County Adult, Juvenile and Alternative Detention Centers.<\/p>\n

With most county offices closed over the weekend, the outage might not be a problem for most operations, but the detention facilities operate around the clock, Neeley said at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere should be no change to operations, but as you imagine, getting ahold of someone may be a challenge, and if you rely on email communication, that may be impossible,\u201d said Neeley.<\/p>\n\n

He said utility crews worked to restore power to customers first, then worked on fiber optic connections.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis outage does not affect the San Juan County Communications Center,\u201d Neeley said.<\/p>\n

Neeley said Monday that phone and internet service was restored Sunday morning.<\/p>\n

McGee Park was hit with flooding, which county crews cleaned up. They also worked on county-maintained roads to make sure they were passable.<\/p>\n

Neeley said continuity of operation plans are in place for all county departments, which allowed operations to continue uninterrupted.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t have specifics on the cause of the outage,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"On
On Saturday, the office of the Navajo Nation reported water and power outages on the reservation that started Friday afternoon. (Navajo Nation Facebook)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

On Saturday, the office of the Navajo Nation reported water and power outages on the reservation that started Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n

\u201cA regionwide power outage affecting Utah areas of the Navajo Nation includes the communities of Mexican Water, Bluff, Aneth, Red Mesa, White Mesa and Montezuma Creek,\u201d the news release said.<\/p>\n

No fatalities, injuries or loss of livestock were reported to the Navajo Nation Police Department, according to the news release.<\/p>\n

Structural damage to households were reported, said NPD Commander Rory Atcitty on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo far, impacted areas that we know of are Chinle, southeastern Utah, Montezuma Creek, Red Mesa and Aneth, and then Shiprock, Gadii\u2019ahi, Cove, Red Valley, Sanostee and Naschitti areas,\u201d Atcitty said.<\/p>\n

\"With
With roads washed out by the rain, Navajo Tribal Utility Authority had a delay in repairing and restoring electrical power, according to a Navajo Nation news release Saturday. (Navajo Nation Facebook)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

With roads washed out by the rain, Navajo Tribal Utility Authority was delayed in its attempts to repair and restore electrical power, the release said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are setting up a structure in Montezuma Creek for a cooling station and also for a temporary power bank so people can recharge cellphones or whatever,\u201d Atcitty said.<\/p>\n

The structure is at the old Montezuma Creek clinic, and the news release included that a mobile command unit was being deployed to the Red Mesa Chapter.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the communities in Utah, they\u2019re currently out of power,\u201d he said. \u201cSanostee is out of water from a water breakage. That\u2019s the only place we\u2019re aware of right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

As of Monday, the Emergency Operation Center was on stand down, with water and food items being distributed through Utah Navajo Health System, said George Hardeen, Navajo Nation public relations director.<\/p>\n

Farmington Electric Utility System replaces damaged poles<\/div>\n

Hank Adair, director of Farmington Electric Utility System, said Monday afternoon that crews have replaced about 20 distribution poles that were damaged by high winds, and were replacing nine others.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe winds were extreme enough in certain locations that the poles snapped in half midlength,\u201d Adair stated in an email on Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were outages across a broad range of our 1,718 square-mile service territory. Outages were from Farmington east, with the northernmost outage being in the Middle Mesa Area,\u201d said Adair.<\/p>\n

\"Hank
Hank Adair, director of Farmington Electric Utility System, said repair costs from the weekend storm will exceed $200,000. (Courtesy Hank Adair)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The most severe damage was in the West Hammond, Flora Vista and West Mesa Manzano areas, he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe outage began at 3:45 p.m. on Friday and by the evening 5,300 meters were out of service. Within 16 hours, or by Saturday midmorning, 80% of those customers had their power restored, leaving approximately 1,000 customers without power,\u201d said Adair.<\/p>\n

By Sunday morning, service had been restored to 80% of those customers, leaving 200 customers out of service.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese were the most challenging to restore with significant pole replacement and challenging repairs in the West Mesa Manzano and West Hammond areas. All customers were restored by 10 p.m. Sunday,\u201d Adair said.<\/p>\n

\"Farmington
Farmington Electric Utility System Director Hank Adair said 20 power poles were replaced in order to fully restore power by 10 p.m. Sunday. (Courtesy Hank Adair)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The damage was primarily caused by high winds, which directly affected power lines or from fallen trees and limbs, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am unsure of the wind speeds, I have heard reports of 80 mph-plus winds,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Monday evening, FEUS was still completing repairs to the system, including their transmission and fiber optic lines. Adair said they expect the costs will exceed $200,000.<\/p>\n

\u201cBetween our line crews, our system operators, our customer-care manager providing updates, and our contractors, 40 of our staff were involved,\u201d said Adair.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would also like to say thank you so much to our customers for their outpouring of support, and their patience through a very long weekend,\u201d said Adair.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

winds, heavy rain and golf ball-size hail cause extensive damage<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26997,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1240,1222,155,799,28,1241],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-26996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-aztec","tag-bloomfield","tag-education","tag-farmington","tag-headlines","tag-kirtland"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26996"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26996\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79540,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26996\/revisions\/79540"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26996"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=26996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}