Food and Beer Festival to go on despite floods
Crews ready El Rancho de las Golondrinas for weekend celebration
SANTA FE — El Rancho de las Golondrinas — the living history museum south of Santa Fe — is still recovering from the July 23 storm that caused significant flooding. But the New Mexico Food and Beer Festival scheduled for this weekend will still go on.
Daniel Goodman, the museum’s director, said Friday crews are still cleaning up debris from the thunderstorm that dropped as much as 3.5 inches of rain to some parts of Santa Fe. While las Golondrinas didn’t get nearly as much rain that night, it’s located downstream from the city and the neighboring community of La Cienega seemed to be hit hardest by the flooding.
“A wall of water came flying through La Cienega,” Goodman said, adding that homeowners got hit a lot worse than the museum, a collection of historic buildings, did.
Officials with the Federal Emergency Management Agency were performing damage assessments in the Santa Fe area this week.
As for El Rancho de las Golondrinas, no buildings were significantly damaged but its performance, wedding and burro fields were left covered with mud and silt by the flood.
The rushing waters also took out much of its acequia infrastructure used to irrigate crop fields on the ranch and a pedestrian bridge that crossed La Cienega Creek that connected two halves of the property, forcing the closure of the back half of the 200-acre property for about a week, Goodman said.
There’s still a logjam farther
down creek that needs to be cleaned up.
“If there’s another big flood, it will back the water back up to our property and flood everything again,” Goodman said.
The ranch on Friday issued an email appeal for emergency donations to help with the cleanup. But crews have done enough work on the mess that the museum will again host the annual Panza Leena, Corazon Contento: New Mexico Food and Beer Festival, from noon to 6 p.m. today and Sunday. Food vendors, local breweries and cideries and live music will be a part of the event.
“We have people out here walking around; we’ve got to make it safe for everyone,” Goodman said.
Weather-related issues continue to impact the Santa Fe area. A rainstorm Thursday night caused a power outage at the Santa Fe airport delayed some outbound flights. The power went out shortly before 3 p.m. Friday, leaving about 2,700 customers without power for several hours and prompting the early closure of City Hall, the recreation center at Fort Marcy Park, the city’s main library and the convention center.
The city’s latest figures from Wednesday indicate that the city’s Constituent Services hotline received more than 300 requests for damage assessments, 166 of which had been completed. Preliminary assessments determined that 11 structures have been destroyed, 51 has sustained major damage, 52 sustained minor damage, and four structures were inaccessible.
More than 2,000 books at a Santa Fe library were destroyed by water from the July 23 deluge, and carpet and shelves were soaked. La Farge Branch Library Director Kathryn Spangle said the flood caused about $37,000 worth of damage.