Gallup flooding hits Route 66 businesses for third time this year

Several streets in Gallup flooded on Monday, for the third time this year, with more rain expected later this week. The flooding hit businesses downtown along Route 66, with water building up to two to three feet on busy city streets.

Residents and businesses in McKinley County are preparing for more flooding. Cha’ahh owner Leo Flores bought a flood control barrier for the front of the business. “That helped mitigate some of the water, so it just went a quarter inside the building,” Flores said. “We waterproofed the floor before the floods came.”

Gallup McKinley County Chamber of Commerce CEO Peter Campos said storefronts along Route 66 have taken on water. “Some of them had a few inches of water inside the building, and as cars drive by, the water would displace right into their front door,” Campos said.

Mayor Marc DePauli said major flooding had not been a problem in Gallup for decades. “The last time we had big floods like this was in 2005, 2006,” DePauli said.

DePauli said the drainage system is not adequate to move large amounts of water out of downtown and into the Puerco River. “Right now most of those channels are 100 years old; they were built with Route 66, and there hasn’t been a lot of maintenance done on those,” DePauli said. “They’re full of vegetation. Vegetation has to be removed, and they have to be recontoured so water will flow out of downtown and into the Puerco River.”

Campos said the city faces jurisdictional hurdles when trying to clear storm drainage. “The city does not own the property where the storm drainage goes through, and they’ve had difficulties working with the railroad and the state to be allowed to clear out the soil and silt that gets built up in there,” Campos said.

The City of Gallup is asking residents to avoid driving through standing water and to stay away from Route 66 during a storm. Crews are working to clear gutters and drains around flood-prone areas ahead of the upcoming storm.