Four Corners, October 2026: what the alerts said

What the alerts said

The first river forecast said "minor flooding." On Thursday, October 22, at about 6:35 p.m., the National Weather Service's first river flood warnings for Farmington and Shiprock said "Minor flooding is forecast." ⁴ The next day the river at Farmington passed its 1909 record.² At Shiprock the gauge read 21.2 feet early on Saturday, against a 2005 record of 14.5 feet, and then stopped reporting.²

In San Juan County, New Mexico, most orders said "now", not where. The county sent 15 "EVACUATE NOW" alerts to phones on October 23 and 24.³ Fourteen of them said the river had breached its banks and to "EVACUATE NOW", and named the shelter but no street, neighborhood or stretch of river. Each one went to phones inside a small area drawn on a map, so where a phone was decided who got it. Most of the county's alerts carried only the short version a phone shows, 90 characters at most, and seven were cut off mid-sentence, for example: "12 FEET OF WATER COMING TO YOU. McGee Park open for people a". ³

Every evacuation alert went out in the "Public Safety" category. All 28 evacuation orders sent as phone alerts in this storm, from five counties in Colorado, New Mexico and Utah, used the "Public Safety" category, which shows on a phone as "Public Safety Alert" rather than "Emergency Alert".^3,5 FEMA's guidance says that category "is not intended for life-threatening incidents where immediate action is necessary." But FEMA's table recommends Public Safety for the general "Local Area Emergency" alert type, and every order from both San Juan counties used that type, so the category followed FEMA's table.^3,5

The order to leave Bluff reached phones; the all-clear did not. San Juan County, Utah sent three "EVACUATE NOW" alerts for Bluff on Sunday night, between 8:29 and 9:24 p.m. The last one said: "After this point evacuation routes may be compromised and emergency services unavailable."³ The order was lifted at 5 a.m. on Monday, according to KUTV.⁶ No phone alert said so; the evacuation alert simply ran until it expired at 7:24 a.m.³

What happened

• About 600 Farmington households were told to leave on October 23.⁷ San Juan County had no official total of evacuees or damaged homes as of October 25.⁸
• Flooded wastewater plants in Bloomfield and Shiprock released sewage into the river. Officials said town tap water in Farmington, Aztec and Bloomfield was safe to drink, and the county asked the state to test private wells.^8,9,10
• McGee Park in Farmington opened as a shelter for people, pets and RVs.^3,10
• No deaths were known in San Juan County, New Mexico, or Archuleta County, Colorado, as of October 25.^8,10
• On Monday, October 26, the Weather Service still expected the San Juan near Bluff to crest that afternoon at about 31 feet, just under its 1927 record of 32 feet.¹¹

What households can take from it

• A river can rise days after the storm, and higher than the first forecast. The San Juan broke its record at Farmington on Friday; downstream at Bluff, the order to leave came on Sunday night.^2,3
• Know your area the way officials name it, and where your county posts its evacuation map. An alert may say only "evacuate now".
• Your phone gets alerts for where it is, not where your home is.¹⁴
• Check that your phone's emergency alerts are on. On an iPhone, go to Settings, Notifications, Government Alerts; Emergency Alerts and Public Safety Alerts each have their own switch.¹² On Android, look for Wireless Emergency Alerts in Settings, including "Public safety messages".¹³
• Know where you would go with pets. McGee Park took people, pets and RVs; not every shelter does.³
• After an order, look for the all-clear from your county, not only on your phone.

What the Four Corners teaches: plan for higher than the first forecast, and for water that arrives days after the rain.