STILL IMPASSABLE
A week later, Black Mesa area roads
a mess
By Kathy Helms, Diné Bureau,
Gallup Independent, MARCH 3, 2008
BLACK MESA — Unless you’ve been there
or seen the photos, you might get the impression that
Black Mesa residents are a bunch of wimps, whining about
the mud. But that’s far from the truth.
“We don’t want everybody else to think
that we’re weak,” Delegate Amos Johnson said Sunday
evening. “We’re strong, resilient people, and we will
get through this.” But with more snow this past weekend
and snow levels in the higher elevations of Black Mesa
“up to the belly of a horse,” there is going to be a
lot more water flowing down the mountain as the snowmelt
begins in earnest.
Black Mesa residents have a lot of pride
and normally would just tough out in silence whatever
hand they’re dealt by Mother Nature. But with weeks
of snow and mud bringing travel to a standstill, it
was time last week to send out an SOS, and pray someone
responded.
“We were worried for our elders and
the people that needed to get to the hospital,” Johnson
said. Navajo Nation Emergency Management responded last
week and set up an Incident Command Center. Assessment
teams scoured the community and three people with medical
emergencies were transported out by air or ambulance.
Navajo and Apache County road crews
and numerous others have been working almost 24 hours
a day on the main roads leading in and out of the area.
“That’s their primary focus, to make the road so you
can drive on it,” Johnson said. “A lot of people are
trying to get into Basha’s, and to buy hay and do their
laundry.”
A young mother traveling Navajo 8066
early Saturday, while the roads were still frozen in
places, hit a spot about 100 yards from Black Mesa Chapter
House and ran into mud up to the truck’s bumper.
“She had three small children in the
truck and was trying to get out to do laundry. She was
out there with a shovel and couldn’t do anything because
part of the ground was still frozen. She was distressed,”
Johnson said. “Thomas Chee got a chain and wrapped it
around there and one of the chapter’s big trucks that
was taking gravel to that area pulled her out.”
Around 6 p.m. Sunday, county and chapter
personnel still were working on the road at the spot
where the woman had been stuck. “If they keep working
tonight the buses may be able to run tomorrow, but only
on the main roads,” Johnson said. “Black Mesa Community
School has lost 16 school days. Talk about No Child
Left Behind ... ”
The Incident Command Center which had
set up at Forest Lake Chapter concluded its assessments
Friday and left, Johnson said. Emergency Management
Executive Director Jimson Joe, Navajo County Supervisor
Percy Dele, Apache County Supervisor Jim Claw and others
attended an emergency planning meeting near Black Mesa
Chapter House on Saturday.
“It was recommended at the planning
meeting to improve communication among the ones participating
in ‘Operation Gray Clay,’ Emergency Management and the
chapters,” Johnson said. “Jim Claw and Percy Dele said
they are going to be there as long as they can. Percy
said he is going to be there until the county’s emergency
declaration ends, which, I think, is March 30.
“We had a chapter planning meeting today
and what we are saying is before that thing is over,
we need to get BIA and others who have authority over
this road to do repairs on some of these culverts.”
An earthen dam situated alongside N8066 is filled to
the brim. “If it gives way, about half a mile to a mile
of N8066 is going to be under water for awhile,” Johnson
said.
“N8065 is still in real bad shape. There’s
a pipe that is just barely hanging on. If that pipe
is gone, you’re talking about maybe 200 people that
are going to be isolated. Old Tree Valley is going to
be like a little island.”
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