Recent rainfall created hazardous driving conditions from the metropolitan areas to the rural portions of the county, and while many experienced flooding over the past week and a half, no place was more adversely affected than the small village of Moquino. The county commission came together in an emergency meeting on June 27 to address the disaster and begin work to fix the problem.
Torrential rainfall came to Cibola County the weekend of June 18 and 19. After experiencing the worst May for drought in the 185 years of droughttracking in Cibola, the county was not prepared for the floods which quickly overwhelmed drainage systems. The bridge that connected Moquino to the developed parts of Cibola County was one of the systems that could not stand the floods, and was destroyed.
Because Moquino only had one entrance and exit for the whole community, a disaster situation began. Suddenly, fire personnel and emergency medical personnel did not have access to the village. This created a severe lifethreatening situation for the small community, and prompted the county commission to use its emergency powers to help remedy the situation.
The county commission voted to purchase a new bridge and is looking for a surveyor to help make adjustments, no immediate timeline for installation of the bridge was available.
June 27 Emergency Meeting
With assistance from the county legal team, County Manager Kate Fletcher used state law to host an emergency meeting for the Cibola Board of Commissioners to address the disaster in Moquino.
The short meeting, held at 3 p.m., was not attended by all county commissioners. Commission Chairman Danny Torrez and First Vice Chairwoman Martha Garcia did not attend the meeting. Commissioners Robert Windhorst and Ralph Lucero were at the meeting, and Commissioner Christine Lowery attended the meeting via the internet. Representatives from New Mexico department of Transportation, Cibola Fire Marshal Dustin Middleton, the Cibola County Road crew, and State Representative Harry Garcia were present.
With urgency in her voice and excited hand movements, Manager Fletcher related the emergency situation that Moquino was in. Having visited the site, Fletcher sat with her roads crew and explained that emergency funds were necessary to have a new bridge constructed to restore the people of Moquino’s access to the rest of Cibola.
“The road is not safe. We need to act.” Fletcher explained with urgency. Manager Fletcher told the commission that they needed to consider the emergency purchase of a new bridge. She said the county had applied for emergency funding from the state but did not have time to sit around and wait because of the disaster situation that exists now in the Moquino area.
To express the urgency of the situation, Manager Fletcher told the commission, “This is an action we had been discussing for a few weeks, but now with the bridge actually collapsing, we need to act. And we need to act fast. It’s going to cost a lot of money; we have applied for funding through NMDOT but I don’t know, I haven’t spoken with them yet, but we can’t wait.”
The plan Manager Fletcher proposed to the commission was this: Using the company Acrow, the county will purchase a bridge and a team of engineers will install it. This is being done using emergency powers because of the threat to public health and safety in Moquino.
Acrow is a company famous for their construction of prefabricated bridges, meaning it will be made elsewhere and brought to Cibola County. Members of Acrow had visited the Moquino site and two contractors have looked at the location to give the county a quote for installation of the prefab bridge.
“We do have other bridges and other roads that we have to deal with, but this one is significant in the sense that when that bridge collapsed, we couldn’t get there. 911 – emergency services – couldn’t get there, and they couldn’t get to us. That is extremely dangerous, and this is a lifesaving issue, that’s why we’re here,” Manager Fletcher related to the commission.
The purchase of the bridge will cost $453,000, and it is expected to last at least 65-years. The county has an engineer on hand who will work with Acrow, but it will need to find a surveyor for the bridge and the county is hoping to have assistance from NMDOT to find a surveyor. This cost does not include the requisition costs of a surveyor or the engineer.
“So, we’re already at half a million dollars?” Commissioner Lucero asked.
“Oh, yeah. It’s going to be about a million dollars, maybe even a little bit more,” Fletcher responded. “We put this bridge on funding sources from NMDOT, and we are in contact with them about how we can get funding from NMDOT. But we have to make decisions, we can’t just wait, we need to get people in and out of there.”
The present commissioners voted unanimously to approve the funds necessary to purchase the bridge, an engineer and a surveyor. Then they voted to give Manager Fletcher all the power she needs in the event of extra costs to see the construction completed.
No timeline was immediately available for when the bridge may be completed.
Road to Moquino
The construction of a bridge is not cheap, and it is typically a very long process. The only way in and out of Moquino is County Road 5, a road that has been in disrepair for a long time and was put on the county’s list of priority roads to be fixed. State Representative Harry Garcia, who represents the Moquino area in the state legislature, said that funding had been secured by the state for repair, but the funding was vetoed by Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham.
The unexpected rain overwhelmed drainage systems across the county, this was especially true of County Road 5. The bridge that leads in and out of Moquino was a two-culvert system that simply could not handle the rush of water that came to the village.
Floodwaters overwhelmed the arroyo and bridge, collapsing the system.
No timeline was immediately available for when the bridge may be installed as work still needs to be done. Manager Fletcher said that the county government is working hard to resolve this problem and restore 911 access to the rural community.