Communities in southwest Colorado are still digging out after last week’s storms and disastrous flooding across the southwest.
Pagosa Springs and Archuleta County held a joint work session Monday evening to talk about the community response and what comes next. During a meeting that lasted more than two hours, Archuleta County Commissioners and members of the Pagosa Springs Town Council discussed the flood and its aftermath, including communication systems, rescue operations and protocols, and the extent of the damage across the county. But the elected officials had other, equally-pressing concerns.
"I know he’s not listening, or any of his crew," said County Commissioner John Ranson, a Republican. "But if the three of you could pass this on to Mr. President."
Ranson directed his remarks to the Congressional staff attending the meeting, asking them to deliver a message to President Trump.
(Staff representing Colorado's Democratic US Senators John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet, and representing Republican Jeff Hurd, who represents the state's 3rd Congressional District, all joined the meeting by video call.)
"We are a resilient community. And we will bounce back stronger than ever," Ranson said, addressing the President directly. "Last year we had zero help. No dollars. And (we) had to dig out of a hundred-year flood. I plead with you, sir, to sign the local disaster declaration, as soon as possible."
These communities spent the last year repairing damage from another major flood event that hit the region in October 2025, destroying roads and property along the San Juan River. Local officials are still assessing if those repairs have survived last week's flooding.
"It’s really hard to say at this point, just because so much is still underwater," said Pagosa Springs town manager David Harris.
"Some of the riverbank stabilization has been eroded. The replacement sewer pipe on the first street bridge, that washed downstream," he added."
Last December, the Trump Administration denied the state's request for a disaster declaration, making towns and counties ineligible for support from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The Administration also denied successive appeals.
Harris says local governments could only afford to repair some of the estimated $13 million in damage, and that incomplete repairs may have compounded the damage from this year’s flooding.
"We had a lot of debris and cobble that came down as a result of last year’s flooding," Harris said. "Because we didn’t have sufficient funds to address that cleanup to the extent that we should have, that caused the river to be a lot higher than it would have been normally.
At Monday night's joint work session, these “what-if” questions hung over the meeting.
"I can't help but wonder had we been able to get funding to properly repair some of the damages last year, if we would not have been in a better place this year to absorb some of this water," said Archuleta County Commissioner Warren Brown, also a Republican. "But I believe wholeheartedly, had we been able to fix it properly, we would have been able to meet this crisis better.”
The town and county are now dealing with the consequences of two historic flooding events in just one year. By all measures, the recent flooding has been far more destructive, and last year’s $13 million estimate is likely just a fraction of what officials now project.
"Countywide we’re probably looking (at) 90 to 100 million," said Pagosa Springs Town Manager Harris.
On Monday, the Trump Administration said it would provide some disaster aid to flood-damaged areas in New Mexico, where officials estimate infrastructure reconstruction will cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
But so far, the administration has not indicated whether it will issue a similar declaration for communities immediately to the north, in Colorado.