THAT DAY…

Right in the middle of our life, on an ordinary day, the unthinkable happened.  Everything went from ordinary to chaotic, and there I stood, in the mess of it all, knowing there will now be a before and an after.  That day.  06/17/2024


It has been a year since the fires in June of 2024 and Ruidoso and the residents are slowly recovering.  Nothing about this process has been easy but I finally feel like we are at the end of it.  We debated moving to another city in New Mexico or to Colorado for months, we even took trips to different towns to see if we would want to live there.  We really liked Durango, Pagosa Springs and Santa Fe but in the end, we decided to stay here.  Several people have asked me why we decided to stay and there are many reasons why we stayed.   

Our land is not livable for years, maybe not in our lifetime.  The total devastation of Cedar Creek and the flooding that is now occurring due to the loss of the vegetation makes it a dangerous canyon to be in.  The few houses that remain have nobody living in them.  It is just dump truck after dump truck hauling debris out and building flood dams to try to lessen the flooding.  Most of the trees (our favorite part) have been cut down.  It’s basically a brown and black construction zone.  Some people are trying to rebuild but how can you sleep somewhere that can flood in an instant?  Its insane and, quite frankly, stupid.  What I have learned is that everyone deals with a disaster differently and some people will not accept that their land is not livable.  I wish them the best of luck.

We have been living in Capitan, which is 20 miles away, since the fire.  The ranch we have been staying on is beautiful but it is not in the pines like we are used to being in. Knowing that we had a safe place to stay with our animals allowed us to heal.  I think we spent the first 2 months living on the porch and just being.  We had no television and honestly, I was so traumatized that I could barely watch anything and I couldn’t even read a book because I could not concentrate.  So we sat on the porch swing and looked out over the ranch and just existed and that enabled us to heal.  Are we complete?  No, not yet but it is a new normal.

I began a job at a Domestic Violence shelter that I love.  To get there the drive from Capitan takes me through one of the canyons that burned and it is quite depressing to drive through.  We began house hunting and found a house that is in town (hoping that will keep us safe) and we moved in slowly over the month of June.  Now I am 10 minutes away and get to drive through midtown which is where all the action is.  We are back in the pines!  We have been accumulating things for the new house like a couch and a bed.  We had a storage unit in town that did not burn and we weren’t sure what exactly was in it but I have unpacked it all and most of our mementos, pictures, keepsakes and Christmas memories were preserved.  That stuff had been in storage for 5 years and I had no idea that it was in there.  It was just a little bit of joy when I found those boxes.

We decided to stay for many reasons and one of them is the people who owned the ranch we stayed at for almost a year.  The kindness and generosity of that family as well as people here and in Roswell and Cloudcroft who helped after the fires was amazing.  We evacuated to Roswell and we pulled over at a gas station to get gas and water because it was hot, really hot and we had 2 huge dogs and 2 cats in the car with us.  We were pretty much in shock and exhausted and I got out to go in the store and a wonderful woman standing at the pump asked if we were from Ruidoso and I said yes.  She asked if my house made it and I told her we didn’t know yet and we were waiting to hear.  She insisted on filling our car up and asked if she could give me a hug.  This was maybe 7 hours after the fires.

The generosity and offers of help just kept coming.  This community pulled together and took care of their own.  All of the cities around us mobilized and helped as much as possible.  It has taken us almost a year to find a place to live in Ruidoso due to a housing shortage.  After the fires the Community Foundation, a charitable organization in Lincoln County, began taking donations on behalf of the community.  You submitted and application and got a recommendation from a board member (that I knew from work) and about once a month they would distribute the funds to the families that lost their homes.  This happened every month until December of 2024.  It was a godsend as restocking an entire house is very expensive.  Many of the businesses gave us gift cards, gas cards, furniture and food.  One of the churches here would let you get 2 rooms of furniture and we got a washer and dryer and a dining room table for free.  And they kept it stored for us until we found a home to move into.  Other churches in the area provided everything from food to hygiene products to pet food as well as gift cards.

And, of course, the home we stayed in which was so incredibly generous and quite peaceful and beautiful.  The blessing of not having to worry where we were going to stay lessened the blow.  We also really learned to love Capitan.  Just the overall kindness here is why we stayed.  We have made some great friends here and now when I go into a store I usually know someone in there.  My job and the people I work for are very fulfilling.  And the beauty of the mountains is still here and we consider it our home now, no matter what. 

The flooding is limited to certain areas so please come and visit Ruidoso!  We live on tourism and I think some people don’t understand where the fires were.  The main parts of town have not been affected and everything is open.  The fires and floods did not hit the tourist parts of town.  We do have some flooding but it is confined to specific areas and we are prepared for it.  They have been working for a year on containing the floodwaters and they have done a lot to keep people and property safe.  Please come see us!  We are Ruidoso Strong!