Three summers ago, over Father’s Day weekend, my family and I went camping in the Lincoln National Forest, just a few hours drive north of our home in El Paso, Texas. It’s a beautiful area that’s long served as a getaway for the region, with skiing in the winter, and golf and hiking in the summer. My daughter played under the trees, and I rode my bike down mountain trails that, I noticed, seemed concerningly dry.
The next evening, after we left to drive home, two fires started in forests surrounding the town of Ruidoso, New Mexico, around 25 miles away from where we’d been. I watched horrifying videos online of fire lapping the mountains behind the village’s strip malls and parking lots. The fires were eventually suppressed by a combination of human effort and the late summer monsoon season. But when the downpour of rain hit the burnt landscape around Ruidoso, it created another problem: Recurring floods then ripped through town, damaging homes and infrastructure, and leading to emergency rescues.
The following summer, the scene repeated. On July 8, 2025, monsoon rain hit a burn scar and quickly swelled the Rio Ruidoso and its tributaries. Three people — two of them children — lost their lives.
Reporter Abe Streep, a member of ProPublica’s Southwest office, and I met in Ruidoso to report on what happened. Ruidoso is a place built on tourism, with a paid (rather than volunteer) fire department staff and its own disaster manager. How could two children and a man be swept to their deaths in a place that appeared equipped to handle such disasters?
In two stories ProPublica recently published, Abe answered those questions. He found that, after the 2024 fires, experts warned the town of increased flash flooding risks. Initially, local and state leaders considered a relocation plan for some homes and businesses that would get people out of harm’s way, but the project faltered. Instead, village leaders continued promoting tourism to the town, and the mayor even chastised residents for warning of floods on social media. Abe also reported that, while local and state officials insisted the emergency response to the flood was admirable, first responders say the three deaths could have been avoided. The responders told Abe that village leadership left them understaffed and inadequately equipped to contend with the flooding.
The Village of Ruidoso did not respond to detailed written questions about its emergency response, and it has not publicly released a report on rescue efforts during the flood. Reached by phone, the fire chief, Cade Hall, disputed our reporting but declined to provide specifics. Mayor Lynn Crawford has said protecting the village includes balancing public safety with tourism, the lifeblood of its economy. But in an interview last year, Crawford said to Abe and me: “Who’s to blame? I didn’t start the fire.”
My role as a photographer was to document Ruidoso as the story unfolded — to visualize the people and place at the center of it. It’s a role I’ve had countless times in my career, but this story hit unexpectedly close to home. I could imagine my own family caught unaware in a similar situation, trying to escape the El Paso summer heat but instead navigating an unfathomable disaster.
When Abe and I started reporting, we met people from the community and out of town who tried to help. I watched as New Mexico National Guard service members loaded sand bags into families’ cars, people prepared hot meals for those who had been displaced and volunteers handed out donated supplies from collection centers.
While we were reporting one afternoon, it started raining. Fear swept through me. Our phones lit up with flood warnings from the National Weather Service. We knew we should take them seriously.
Abe and I sought refuge in a local brewery perched high above the river basin. Before we knew it, the water from that thin little creek of Rio Ruidoso became a torrent. The rushing water rose quickly. It swept through the river valley right under the brewery, carrying what looked like trees and debris with it.
Still, I wanted to photograph the river up close. I left the safety of the brewery and let the heavy rain cover me as I moved closer to the river. As I made photos that afternoon and throughout the rest of the trip, questions about my own safety ran through my mind: Would the water keep rising? If it did, could I get to high ground? And, notably, would I have enough warning?
In hindsight, I realize these questions were largely about whether I could trust the systems in place to keep me and others safe. And as Abe kept reporting over the next year, the more those questions felt valid.
Last month, Abe and I traveled again to Ruidoso. The town felt lighter and less ominous. Much of the ruin had been removed or rebuilt. Grass and sagebrush sprouted on a burn scar. Tourists wandered around a lively downtown on a Friday afternoon. People seemed to be moving on from the terror of the previous year.
But Stephanie and Sebastian Trotter still carry the scars of the day. They lost their two children, Sebastian Rowan, 7, and Charlotte, 4, in the Ruidoso flooding.
There is now a memorial for them and Benjamin “Tim” Feagin, the third person who died, at the RV park where they had been camped. But I wanted to see for myself the places where each of them was found. I felt that making photos of those places could help people connect with the reality of their deaths as well as their lives. So, early one morning, I walked along the floodplain trying to find the locations Abe had shared with me.
I got to the bridge where a firefighter found Sebastian Rowan. There was no marker, no indication that anyone’s body had been found there.
Then I went looking for the area where Charlotte was found. I wandered under pine and cottonwood, through knee-deep grasses and wild sunflowers. Crows cawed overhead, and the early morning sun broke through the trees. I stood there for a while, admiring the beauty, awed by the sadness of the river’s trickle.
