Hallie Funke lives north of Durango in the Animas Valley, about one-eighth of a mile from the Animas River. Muddy puddles fill the pasture near her home. She recalls how fast the flood inundated her property.
“When we woke up at 6, there was no water in our field,” Funke said. “But that whole field was dry. And then by 7 a.m. it was fully underwater.”
In less than an hour, their fields were underneath three feet of water. Funke and her husband panicked. Their hobby goats were in their pen in the field when the water got high. She says her husband jumped in the water to save them.
“It was pretty flat, mellow water,” Funke recalled. “And then right here was a pretty strong current. He was having to walk upstream against the current. It was going over his legs. He was hip-deep.”
They saved the goats, and ultimately the water came a couple hundred feet from their house. This is because their property is in the designated flood plain, which means they are subject to local regulations.
“We just built our house last year, and we're really limited on where we could build,” Funke said. “Actually, some dirt work was done by the previous owners to elevate the section that our house is on so it would be high enough. As far as I know, we wouldn't be allowed to build lower.”
The Funkes’ house is in the Animas Valley north of Durango, a desirable place to build a home, but it’s along the river.
“And people are allowed to build near the fringe of the river,” said Todd Beattie, the building official for La Plata County and the floodplain manager. “But there are consequences.”
Beattie regulates construction that occurs in the floodplain. In the 1980s, La Plata County joined what's called the National Flood Insurance Program, which means they have to follow Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) regulations. For example, it requires lenders to require flood insurance for properties in high-risk flood areas. It also requires that homes can withstand floodwater.
“You can build a house. A lot of times it's elevated. Mostly that's what people do. Elevate it to, you know, get above flood waters,” Beattie said.
He says people sometimes also install flood vents in their homes. This allows water to go into homes and flow back out. These measures are required if you’re in a specific part of the floodplain, like the Funkes’ property, which is elevated. But building is prohibited in another part of the floodplain called the floodway. Basically, it’s a wide area around the river that's set aside for the discharge of the floodwaters.
“That is an area when it does flood that needs to be left undisturbed. So there's no development allowed in a floodway,” Beattie said.
Beattie also said floodplain data is always changing.
“Floodplains need to be updated. You know, the data needs to be updated constantly, really.”
In 2024, FEMA completed a new study of La Plata County’s floodplain using data and light imaging detection from an airplane. That study shifted previous floodplain designations. Meaning some homes in the Animas Valley no longer have to pay for flood insurance. But living in a floodplain means the risk is always there. Especially as climate change makes these extreme events more common.
“When we build, we bring all our human stuff in there. So it can become really a mess. So there's a balance between nature and trying to live in the floodplain,” Beattie said.
And for the Funkes who have chosen to build in the floodplain and follow the regulations that come with it, they’ve come to trust the process.
“Our house is a testament, and all the houses out here are a testament to the plans, and all the surveys they have are pretty legit and have held up, at least for this flood,” said Hallie Funke
The Animas River's flow rate has topped 11,000 cubic feet per second only five times in the past 120 years, according to USGS data. According to Beattie, FEMA data show last week’s events were related to a one-in-25-year, or 4%, chance of flooding.