Saturday’s rain resulted in road closures across Carlsbad and Eddy County and several rescue attempts. Most significantly, everyone visiting Carlsbad Caverns National Park on Saturday had to shelter in place for around nine hours because the road leading out of the park (through Walnut Canyon) was flooded. The evacuation took place at around 11:30 p.m. with rangers and personnel from Eddy County Fire & Rescue and New Mexico State Police all stationed at water crossings.  Everyone was able make it safely out of the canyon, and we appreciate all of our first responders who assisted with this successful rescue attempt.

Carlsbad Caverns has received quite a bit of attention from the national media over this incident, with many media outlets developing an interest in our area’s monsoon season. Because of the terrain in the region, flash flood watches can occur very rapidly, even in areas where it isn’t raining. 

Carlsbad Caverns National Park is currently closed but plans to re-open after a safety assessment of the situation. 

Several Carlsbad roads were closed on Saturday but have since re-opened. We appreciate everyone for driving safely and getting us through this issue without any major incident.  We also had to postpone our band performance on Saturday night but will reschedule Grupo Maldad at a future date.  The Carlsbad Water Park closed on Saturday but was open again Sunday morning. 

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There was also a major water leak in north Carlsbad Friday evening caused by a pipe split. This leak disrupted services across north Carlsbad, including CARC Inc., Quail Hallow, the Pecos Vista Apartments, Beehive Homes and North Canal. Utilities crews focused on this issue throughout Friday evening and were able to complete repairs and restore services later in the evening. Thank you to Mike Abel and our utilities crew for all of their hard work. 

From the office of Mayor Dale Janway