Two children were killed when floodwater smashed through a riverside RV park in Ruidoso, N.M., on July 8, 2025.
That happened not long after Mayor Lynn Crawford publicly dismissed residents' fears about flooding in a June 30, 2025, radio address as the busy summer travel season got underway, according to Grist and ProPublica.
Here's what to know
The 2024 South Fork and Salt fires burned 25,000 acres above Ruidoso, leaving the area much more susceptible to serious flooding.
Damage from those fires and the floods that followed destroyed about 1,000 homes.
Ruidoso and nearby Ruidoso Downs together have roughly 10,000 residents, but that population can double at minimum in the summer.
Even though engineers had already modeled severe flood outcomes, public officials continued assuring people that the village was safe. In his June 30, 2025 radio address, Crawford criticized residents who had been warning about flooding online.
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"They spout stuff off. And I don't know why they're so afraid. I do not understand it," he said, per Grist.
"They told us exactly where it was going to come and what it was going to do," Fire Chief Cade Hall said, per Grist, referring to the engineering reports.
Another flood hit the Rio Ruidoso on July 8, 2025.
Sebastian Trotter, an Army helicopter pilot at Fort Bliss, and Stephanie Trotter, a nursing student, were staying at Riverview RV Park with their children, 7-year-old Sebastian Rowan and 4-year-old Charlotte.
The water tore through their trailer and carried the children away.
More background
Crawford also ran the Ruidoso Jockey Club at the Ruidoso Downs Race Track & Casino and had described that as his "real job," Grist reported.
At the same time, village leaders were trying to manage a natural disaster threat without crippling a tourism economy built on horse racing, summer visitors, and the track itself.
While repairs or replacements for older bridges and culverts upstream moved more slowly — despite the risk that they could snag debris and worsen flooding — the racetrack reopened with help from a state-funded rebuild.
New Mexico invested $16 million to restore flood-damaged culverts and related infrastructure, allowing the facility to reopen by May 25, 2025.
According to Grist and ProPublica, federal emergency officials pressed for significant parts of Ruidoso to be moved away from the river.
Local leaders instead rebuilt in place.
"Money was the driver," Thora Walsh Padilla, the former president of the Mescalero Apache Tribe, observed, according to Grist. "You're putting [visitors] in jeopardy."
Since 2024, state and federal disaster spending in Ruidoso has surpassed half a billion dollars — about nine times the village's annual budget — even as residents and tourists continue to face repeated risk.
What's being done?
One protection measure now in place is a village floodplain map — posted online on March 31, 2025 — that lets users zoom in on individual properties.
Cobb, Fendley & Associates identified more than 200 addresses at risk, including both RV parks named in the investigation.
Village and county officials also examined buyouts for the most vulnerable parcels.
They estimated that relocating roughly 1,000 properties would cost about $650 million, and the Natural Resources Conservation Service had raised the possibility of a large-scale relocation program, Grist reported.
The state has assembled $249 million for a buyout program, with more than three-quarters of that money coming from the federal government. The funding could help move people out of the areas most vulnerable to flooding, though some owners were still waiting for appraisals.
Scientists have also cautioned that greener burned hillsides do not mean the threat is over. New vegetation can slow flooding, but wildfire scars may keep producing destructive runoff for years.
And the hazard is not limited to Ruidoso, as Belize Lane of Utah State University, an associate professor in civil and environmental engineering, explained, per Grist.
"This is not a one-and-done kind of thing. There is still an opportunity for many, many more events that may not look like that, but may still be hugely destructive."
Where can I learn more?
These stories look at how other communities are grappling with the same mix of fire, flooding, and economic pressure. They cover rising insurance costs in New Mexico, tourism worries in Florida, and flood-prone development in North Carolina.
• In New Mexico, insurance costs for homeowners are rising as catastrophic fires reshape housing markets.
• In Florida, businesses at hotspots are pleading for tourists to return despite hurricane fears.
• In North Carolina, thousands of homes went up in flood-prone areas as waters spread.
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