{"id":34730,"date":"2023-04-10T15:42:24","date_gmt":"2023-04-10T21:42:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mesa-snowmelt-overwhelms-dolores-in-valley-below\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T08:20:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:20:20","slug":"mesa-snowmelt-overwhelms-dolores-in-valley-below","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mesa-snowmelt-overwhelms-dolores-in-valley-below\/","title":{"rendered":"Mesa snowmelt overwhelms Dolores in valley below"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Rapid
Rapid snowmelt has created flooding in part of Dolores. (Jim Mimiaga\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Rapid snowmelt coming off Granath Mesa overwhelmed drainage infrastructure and flooded parts of Dolores Saturday and Sunday.<\/p>\n

The heavy runoff flowed down a steep canyon and into culverts under Road U. 5 on the north side of town.<\/p>\n

From there it breached drainage ditches near the Teddy Bear Preschool and flowed down Hillside Avenue and 15th Street.<\/p>\n

Social media posts called for help, including from the Montezuma County Sheriff\u2019s Office. Flooding closed portions of 15th Street and Hillside Drive.<\/p>\n

More than 50 volunteers came out over the weekend to manage the water by filling sandbags and stacking them to protect buildings and redirect floodwaters back into drainage ditches.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe community responded and came together, and it was Easter Sunday,\u201d said Dolores Mayor Leigh Reeves.<\/p>\n

The water flooded streets, some yards and school playgrounds.<\/p>\n

Quick sandbag-stacking prevented serious flooding at the preschool and kept water away from public housing apartments and Dolores school buildings.<\/p>\n

\"Flooding
Flooding from snowmelt overwhelmed drainage capacity in Dolores as temperatures rise. (Jim Mimiaga\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"A
A dike of sandbags was installed to direct floodwaters to a drainage ditch in Dolores Sunday. (Jim Mimiaga\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Rapid
Rapid snowmelt overfilled drainages ditches in Dolores and caused flooding. (Jim Mimiaga\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Dolores
Dolores Mayor Leigh Reeves and Montezuma County Emergency Manager Jim Spratlen talk with a resident about flood mitigation. (Jim Mimiaga\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Volunteers
Volunteers and neighbors joined forces to help control flooding in Dolores this weekend. (Jim Mimiaga\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Dolores Schools Maintenance Director Alofonso Goad was at the scene until 2 a.m. Sunday mitigating and monitoring the water levels.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would rise, then fall and repeat,\u201d he said about the water flow.<\/p>\n

Town and school maintenance officials, along with Dolores Volunteer Fire Department, the county sheriff and emergency manager Jim Spratlen, developed a plan to control the floodwaters.<\/p>\n

Lines of stacked sandbags were placed along the edges of Hillside Avenue and 15th Street to direct water toward a newly dug pit. From there, a large pump and pipeline delivered the water back to the drainage ditch, which continued under Colorado Highway 145 and into the Dolores River at Riverside Park.<\/p>\n

Volunteers bagged about 3,000 sandbags, and about 2,000 were used over the weekend to control the situation, Spratlen said. Sheriff Steve Nowlin brought in a sandbag-filling station, and the county donated sand. Free sandbags for Dolores residents are available at Joe Rowell Park.<\/p>\n

Andy and Megan Waterman arrived from Cortez to fill and place sandbags, including around a rental property they own next to a flooded street.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will be watching to see what happens. It\u2019s nice to see everyone coming out to help,\u201d Megan Waterman said.<\/p>\n

The flooding is expected to continue this week as low-elevation snow melts off the mesa above but in a more controlled way, Spratlen said.<\/p>\n

Above-average snowpack and a cool early spring delayed the runoff, which arrived in a fury after temperatures climbed to the high 60s.<\/p>\n

Crawl spaces, basements and cellars in Dolores have already seen flooding from a rising water table in the river valley.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Community rallies to fill sandbags, redirect floodwaters; no injuries reported<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34731,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[44,1497,28,29,88],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-34730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-dolores","tag-flood","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-weather-news"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34730","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=34730"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34730\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82717,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34730\/revisions\/82717"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34730"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=34730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}