Winter Storms Cause Record Damage Across New Mexico

The recent winter storms that affected much of the nation caused extensive damage to communities In New Mexico, and the effects are still being felt more than a month later.  Tens of thousands of homes and businesses were left without electricity or water for days.

Some residents claimed that it was the worst weather conditions that they had seen, with extremely cold temps and record snow amounts.  In fact,  four days of the storm set record-lows for the Holloman NM area, with Feb. 3 registering the coldest day in history for the area in the month of February at 18 degrees below zero.

According to the 49th Operations Support Squadron Weather Flight, the normal low for February is 28, which means many facilities just aren’t built or equipped to handle such extremes in temperature.  Over 145 federal buildings suffered from damage due to the freezing temps.

Base Master Sgt. Timothy Miles said “We had crews running 24/7 that were responsible for identifying buildings with water damage and fixing the problems in those buildings." 

Most of nearby Holliman’s water is from Alamogordo, but they were having water issues themselves, so the city had to switch to strictly running off of their wells. When the breaks started happening, water production went from 800 gallons per minute to 3,000 gallons per minute, so there was the added effect of an extra 2,200 gallons of water pumping every minute filling and ultimately damaging facilities.

Gas problems were also an issue throughout the state, with more than $3 million in damages estimated from the disruption. 

"We had to figure out which facilities would endure the least amount of damage from the gas being off," said Master Sgt. William Speyrer, 49th CES Heavy Repair superintendent. "We knew when we shut the gas off in a facility, there's a possibility there's going to be damage there. We had to choose which facilities were priority facilities and shut off the gas to the rest, because if we didn't, the whole base was going to go down. But we knew when the gas gets shut off, there's going to be consequences behind that."

Flood Clean Up