Flashfloods

As soon as we left the Valles Caldera it started raining. It poured for a while so we pulled over and had some snacks of canned beans, chips, and cookies. When we got back down to Jemez Springs we could tell it hadn't rained as hard there but there are several low places on the road through town where the water pours across it when it rains in the higher elevations causing some smaller flashfloods. Flashfloods can be deadly if you get caught in a big one. We had seen were the road crews had be doing some work in these same areas when we had come through in the morning. Now they were going to have to work them again. In fact we had to wait about 15 minutes at one place to let the grader make it safe enough to cross. Here are some cars that were in front of us as we went across the bad places and some of the water running on into some natural ditches beside the road.

In this wash out the pavement had let go and there was a drop off of about 5 or 6 inches and then you had to go back up on the other side.

Much worse than these and the road would have been closed.