Pagosa Springs residents pledge to rebuild after third historic flood

The San Juan River in Pagosa Springs peaked at 16.8 feet Sunday evening; that's more than a foot higher than the previous flood's peak and four feet higher than last year. But the sensor was down for several hours overnight, so the real peak may have been even higher.

Pagosa Springs residents say this latest flood has done more damage than the previous two.

"That was kind of very eye-opening and kind of the wow, the power of water," said Pagosa Springs resident and business owner Ben Dozier.

When Dozier returned to his downtown Pagosa Springs home Monday morning, he was shocked to witness his neighbor's home slide off the bank, float down the San Juan River and crash into a pedestrian bridge.

He filmed the unbelievable moment on his phone.

"I was standing on the back porch and heard this just crazy noise upriver as it was slowly sliding off," Dozier said. "The noise was just deafening. It was just wild."

It's the worst flood Dozier has ever seen, and that's saying something.

"Three 100-year floods, two years in a row, and the last two being back to back, and each one was bigger than the prior one," Dozier said.

"This past week, eight, nine days have been just like this flipping roller coaster of emotions," said Chris Mott, Pagosa Springs resident and real estate broker.

Ten days ago, Mott stacked sandbags hoping to protect his neighbors' homes. But they were no match for the water.

"Almost five layers, and this flood just mowed them down," Mott said.

As neighbors began cleaning up from that flood, another hit.

"We did a lot of work this last week, and it has just been wiped out," Mott said.

"It was more than three times the damage," Dozier said.

Now they're dealing with worse damage.

"There's a ton of debris, trees, picnic tables, trash cans, just wood, mud. The mud's incredible," Dozier said.

"We got full water intrusion in our house," Mott said. It will be months before his San Juan River Village home is inhabitable again.

These men are grateful their neighbors are safe as the sun rises on their biggest cleanup yet.

"The sun is shining. We've got a mess on our hands," Dozier said. "This town's gonna need a lot of help."

"There's just so many stories around the Pagosa Springs, Durango area, Bayfield, of just tremendous devastation. And so, we feel very fortunate that we got away with what we got away with, right? Because it could have been totally worse," Mott said.

Mott hopes the pattern doesn't continue, or he may be forced to leave the place he loves.

"It's heaven," Mott said. "It is a great spot to reside. But you know, I'm 58 years old. I can't be cleaning up flood damage every year."

"To kind of wrap our head around is kind of crazy. And what our town is going to have to do to recover from that," Dozier said. "There's a lot of families going to be in need after this week."

Dozier says his neighbors who live in the home that was washed away had evacuated well before it was swept away.

Dozier and his wife have a nonprofit called Joycrow that he says will now be focused on flood recovery.

"We have a nonprofit ourselves that all of our businesses donate to, and we give back locally, so we're gonna, you know, use that video as just a hinge point to help the community. We'll help that family specifically, and just see what we can do with it ... to build back an already beautiful town," Dozier said.

He encourages people to support Pagosa Springs and continue to visit the special place once the community has healed.