The man was nearly to his waist in a flooded river and couldn’t get out. A firefighter and a police officer didn’t have enough rope or manpower to lift him onto the temporary flood barrier that separated them from the debris-strewn water. The man, Jere Stark, had just been carried a quarter mile by a torrential flood and was covered in mud and extremely cold.

It was around 3:30 p.m. on July 8, 2025, and a flood in Ruidoso, New Mexico, had unleashed chaos at Paradise Canyon Drive, just a couple hundred yards from the headquarters of the village fire department.

Not far from Stark, a woman huddled on the ground, shielded from the floodwaters by the temporary barrier. It was Stephanie Trotter, a tourist from El Paso, Texas, who had been washed away with her young daughter. A civilian tended to her while a second firefighter hauled in a rope he had used to rescue her. “Is somebody coming for her?” asked the civilian.

By that time, at least eight other firefighters were trying to save people upstream at the Riverview RV Park, where Trotter and Stark had been staying. But at the barrier where Stark was waiting for help, the two firefighters and one police officer were the only first responders. One of the firefighters wasn’t even wearing a personal flotation device — a basic safety measure for flood rescues.

They soon got help from civilians, including a property owner in shorts and flip-flops and a second passerby who both helped one of the firefighters haul Stark from the water with another rope.

Trotter and two civilians told the police officer, Jimmy Hernandez, that her family was missing. Lost in the flood were her 4-year-old daughter, her 7-year-old son and her husband.

Hearing this, Hernandez radioed, “We need swiftwater rescue here.” But no additional swiftwater teams arrived for at least 25 minutes. Both children died, along with an adult man. Trotter’s husband, Sebastian, survived.

The shortage of firefighters at Paradise Canyon Drive illustrates larger problems with Ruidoso’s emergency response that day. Five rescuers involved in the effort said the village’s leadership had not given them enough training or dispatched enough of them in advance of the flooding to protect the community. Because of the flood’s strength, rescuers said, the best chance to save the Trotters’ children was before the water arrived, when they could have evacuated the area where the family was camping.

But they said the fire chief, Cade Hall, had for weeks resisted calls to station additional flood experts in low-lying areas when there was a threat of storms. Doing so would have required paying firefighters overtime. “The village’s mentality is, ‘We’ll have to pay for that, and what if nothing happens?’” said one rescuer in an interview earlier this year.

ProPublica reported that village leaders knew dangerous floods were likely because two intense 2024 wildfires had scarred the hillsides above town. Even moderate rain on severe burn scars can trigger post-fire floods and debris flows. But leaders seeking to encourage tourism scolded residents who warned of the danger on social media. We also examined what went wrong with the rescue itself, consulting with seven experts outside Ruidoso who have experience in emergency response including floods.

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, Hall disputed ProPublica’s 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.

The fire department employed nine swiftwater technicians trained to perform rescues in floodwater. But when forecasters issued a flash flood warning due to heavy rain, only a handful were working, along with four New Mexico National Guard technicians in vehicles capable of navigating floods. According to a spokesperson for the Guard, its members helped rescue nine people from the flood.

Two additional swiftwater teams had recently been in Ruidoso. But when the weather forecast for the area showed a slightly decreased chance of flash flooding in late June, the state’s Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management issued an order to send home the team from Las Cruces. One member of that team, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect their employment, said, “We didn’t understand why we were being sent home.” The other swiftwater team, which was from Texas, left after deadly flooding hit Kerr County and surrounding regions in its home state.

A former incident commander for Cal Fire, California’s fire agency, said that the state shared responsibility for the inadequate emergency response on July 8 because of its decision to send home the Las Cruces team. “This should be a clarion call as to reevaluating their resource availability.”

Asked about the decision, a DHSEM spokesperson said in an email, “New Mexico was experiencing multiple flooding threats,” adding that the team needed to be available to respond elsewhere. According to the spokesperson, there are only about eight swiftwater teams in the state.

But the Las Cruces team was not deployed to another flood. Rather, it went home. “I could understand if we were sent somewhere else,” said the frustrated swiftwater technician.

This left Ruidoso’s firefighters to lead rescue operations in the village. But Hall had for weeks declined requests from off-duty swiftwater technicians who wanted to be stationed in flood-prone areas before the waters hit. One of those areas was close to the Riverview RV Park, where Stark and the Trotter family were staying.

Forty-five minutes before the downpour started, Crawford had stated in a council meeting that whenever the village was alerted to flooding, firefighters and public works employees would be at the ready: “Everybody is in position.”

Over the coming two hours, these words would prove false.

At 2:12 p.m. the National Weather Service sent out a flash flood warning. About 20 minutes later, Hall summoned all off-duty swiftwater technicians. At 2:38 p.m., a weather service hydrologist wrote in a message to emergency managers, “Water is Out of the Banks in the Rio Ruidoso at the County Line.” At 2:47 p.m., the warning was upgraded to a flash flood emergency. Still, internal fire department records show that Hall didn’t call in his full department until 3:10 p.m., 45 minutes after Ruidoso dispatchers recorded the first call for rescue related to the flood. It was too late for some: Before any firefighters could access the Riverview RV Park, Stephanie Trotter and her daughter were swept downstream.

Trotter and her husband, Sebastian, said they had no idea the town was in danger and didn’t receive the automated alerts sent by the National Weather Service. (They said they had not known about, or signed up for, text-message alerts created by the village.) During the hour before the flood reached them, first responders with loudspeakers drove through other parts of the community, telling people to seek high ground. But no officials with loudspeakers went to the Riverview RV Park, even though the area was known to flood and even though it sat just down the road from the primary fire station.

The village had another warning tool it did not use that day: sirens. During the 2024 fires, Ruidoso’s emergency manager, Eric Queller, had overseen the evacuation of thousands using the siren system. Since the flood, the village has claimed that using it could have put people in harm’s way by sending them onto roads covered with water.

The village had long planned to install additional sirens, including three that could instruct people to seek high ground during flooding, allowing a more orderly evacuation. But the new sirens were not yet operational by July 8. In an interview last year, Queller said that the disasters the community faced since 2024 had delayed the project.

According to firefighters, the department’s flood response was also limited by an antiquated dispatch system. Fire departments typically use computer-aided dispatch systems. Ruidoso’s department didn’t have one. Firefighters say this shortfall preceded Hall, and that he had been in favor of acquiring a computer-aided dispatch system.

Experts say that without computer-aided dispatch, chiefs often rely on memory or notes. Radio channels can become clogged, adding to confusion. According to Ruidoso firefighters, the effect was acutely felt during chaotic situations.

Following Stark’s rescue, the first responders at Paradise Canyon Drive were overwhelmed, according to two civilians who were present and Hernandez’s body-camera footage. Trotter told Hernandez that her daughter was in the water, and that they had been in an RV. According to the property owner, Corey Sexton, he saw a child float past and alerted first responders. Hernandez told crews downstream to look for a child, but he also radioed that he thought the children were in an upstream trailer. (Hernandez and the police department did not respond to emailed questions. Reached by phone, the department’s deputy chief did not answer questions about the response.)

The two firefighters, listening to their radios, hustled to the upstream bridge, prepared rope and watched the water. Minutes later, a call came on the radio: two children were trapped in a house at the upstream RV park. Swiftwater technicians at the park waded in and saved them.

During the crucial minutes immediately after the Trotters’ children were swept downstream, no one had clear information. According to multiple firefighters, the department briefly thought it had found all the missing children. Experts told ProPublica that such chaos and misinformation is common during disaster response. But the experts also said it can be mitigated by having good dispatch systems and adequate staffing.

Records show that Ruidoso firefighters fielded 34 emergency calls on July 8 once flooding started, and the department has stated it made more than 60 rescues.

Despite the deaths, first responders say the village’s leadership has not learned needed lessons and has continued to prioritize tourism at the expense of public safety.

By this summer the village had finally installed its voice-activated sirens and reversed its position on the standard ones: The village would now use them during floods.

Hall had planned for all firefighters to be trained as swiftwater technicians. But in February, the firefighters, many of whom worked second jobs to make ends meet, unionized. The department’s plans changed, with Hall sending firefighters to get a lower-level certification that limited their ability to perform rescues in rushing water.

In April, senior Ruidoso Fire Department officers held a meeting during which they discussed Hall’s leadership. ProPublica reviewed a recording of the gathering. An officer said Hall, who did not attend the meeting, still wouldn’t pre-position extra firefighters. “How many people are going to die?” the officer wondered aloud during the meeting.

Hall declined to respond to questions about the meeting and the allegation that he hadn’t pre-positioned enough firefighters to avoid paying overtime.

Once monsoons arrived this year, multiple rescuers say, Hall rarely stationed off-duty firefighters in vulnerable areas. Sometimes in the afternoons, when it was most likely to rain, multiple firefighters weren’t in town. To promote tourism, Ruidoso had signed a contract with Contour Airlines to provide flights between Denver and the village. During takeoffs and landings emergency medical workers had to be present at the airport, 17 miles from where Trotter and Stark were rescued.