SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
Devastating storms have pummeled parts of the southwest for several weeks straight. The region has seen intense rain and hail, even tornadoes, and people there are bracing for more bad weather this weekend. NPR's Ava Berger has been talking with people in that area, and she's with me in the studio now. Hi, Ava.
AVA BERGER, BYLINE: Hi, Sacha.
PFEIFFER: Our listeners may know this area of the southwest as the Four Corners region. It's that area where four states - New Mexico, Utah, Colorado and Arizona - come together. Describe how bad these storms have been there.
BERGER: They've just been nonstop, Sacha, and just really challenging for the people who live there. I mean, I've seen these videos of dramatic rooftop rescues. There was a shipping container floating down a street, and now just entire neighborhoods covered in this thick, dark mud. I talked to Margret Heath. Her family lives in a low-lying area in Farmington, New Mexico, and that's where the Animas and San Juan Rivers both overflowed. Her grandmother's house was destroyed last week by intense floodwaters.
MARGRET HEATH: When the water started to rise, it was pretty scary. My grandma doesn't know how to swim, and by the time we could see that it was time to get out, it was waist-level deep, at least.
BERGER: I mean, waist-level deep. And she told me the family barely escaped to the top of a hill.
PFEIFFER: Any other anecdotes you heard that convey just how extreme this is?
BERGER: Yeah. So like the Heaths, there are hundreds of residents across this region that have been displaced - homes flooded and damaged. I also talked to Thomas Donaldson, and he co-owns Redemption Restoration and Cleaning in Farmington. So on Monday, he went out, and in San Juan County, New Mexico, here's what he saw.
THOMAS DONALDSON: It literally reminded me of movies of zombie apocalypse - like, everybody outside of their home. I'm talking about it's just cars piled up on top of piled up. You're just kind of like, oh, my gosh.
BERGER: A zombie apocalypse, Sacha. And the areas hit hard include the Navajo Nation. That's one of the largest tribal nations in the country, and dozens of people's homes and businesses there were also destroyed. We do know at least one person died in New Mexico last weekend after getting swept away in floodwaters.
PFEIFFER: In terms of why there's been all this terrible weather, what do we know about what's driving it?
BERGER: Climate scientists I talk to say that this year's super El Niño was a factor in last weekend's rain. So the El Niño is a natural climate pattern. It happens every few years when large amounts of water in the eastern Pacific warm up. This weekend, there's another climate event called an atmospheric river, or you might have heard Pineapple Express - it's affecting the area. And Jon Meyer is a climatologist at the Utah Climate Center. He told me this Pineapple Express is like a conveyor belt of wind that moves tremendous amounts of moisture from Hawaii to the West Coast in these really narrow channels.
JON MEYER: Not only do you get a lot of precipitation over a couple of hours, but it stacks up hour after hour, day after day.
BERGER: Now El Niño is likely actually pushing and helping to push the Pineapple Express right towards this region that's already being hard hit.
PFEIFFER: And is that oncoming Pineapple Express why, as we said earlier, the weather is expected not to improve anytime soon?
BERGER: Yes. One to three more inches of rain expected for very late tonight into Sunday, and a huge part of the region, once again, under a flood watch with likely more flash flooding. That's just really tough for these families that may have to go through the same thing all over again. On a positive note, I will say, people I've talked to, Sacha, say that the communities are coming together. They're supporting each other. There's free food from the local restaurant. There's clothing drives, and there's a little bit of hope that maybe trick-or-treaters can go out tonight.
PFEIFFER: That is NPR's Ava Berger. Thank you.
BERGER: Thanks, Sacha. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
