The October flood was powerful. Hopefully, it was a once-in-a-lifetime event…
— from PagosaOutside.com, May 6, 2026.
No, the October flood of 2025 was not a “once-in-a-lifetime event”, as much as folks were tempted to hope it was. We had two more even bigger flood events in 2026.
When Clarissa and I moved to Pagosa Springs in 1993, we came across a surprising number of people who described this place as “Paradise”.
Some accounts also refer to the biblical Garden of Eden as “Paradise.” We know how that story turned out.
Temptation is a powerful thing. And how we respond to temptation can determine our future.
A prominent downtown Pagosa business, Pagosa Outside, posted a story last spring on their website, sharing a hopeful vision that Pagosa was going to come back “stronger than ever” following the 2025 flood events in the San Juan River.
I began Part One yesterday with a friend’s hopeful comment — made several days prior to the flood of November 1 and 2, 2026 — that business in Pagosa Springs will experience a better year, next year, than they did this past summer. His downtown business had seen a drop in customers, he said, compared to previous years.
We’re tempted to wonder why some Pagosa businesses experienced 2026 as “less than what was hoped for.” And we might be tempted to offer an explanation and an reasonable prediction for 2027.
People sometimes ask me for predictions about political matters in Archuleta County, thinking that investigative journalists have some kind of conceptual crystal ball, resulting from hours spent researching and writing about community issues. Alas, such is not necessarily the case. Although I do attend a lot of government meetings and know who the key players are, I’m actually relatively uninformed about how “the man and woman on the street” might be feeling, because I’m allergic to social media — the communication channels so popular with average Americans.
The past couple of years here have been a bit rough.
It’s been rough in other parts of the world as well, of course. Anyone who pays attention to the news media can vouch for that fact. But the past couple of years in Pagosa Springs have been unusually challenging for some businesses, and particularly, I think, for downtown businesses.
Floods. Drought. A seemingly interminable highway reconstruction project. An uncertain national economy. High gas prices.
We can start with the floods.
Two back-to-back flood events in 2025, with high water peaks on October 10 and then again on October 14, with national news coverage that left many people thinking that the whole town had been washed down the river.
From the website PagosaOutside.com, May 2026:
But the full story is more interesting than the sensationalized disaster version.
Pagosa was not washed away. Downtown did not disappear. Homes in town were not swept downriver. The Springs Resort was not washed away. The community was muddy, busy, and very much on alert — but it was also intact. And when the water dropped, what remained was not just damage. It was a changed river, a few hot springs pools full of mud, a hard-earned reminder of why years of river planning mattered, and a new chance to shape the San Juan corridor into something more resilient, more interesting, and ultimately better than it was before…
The “sensationalized disaster version”, however, was the version distributed through big national news outlets. The hopeful, “hey, look, we’re even better than before” version of the story that appeared on local websites, was seen by relatively few people.
Is it any wonder that business was “down” somewhat during the summer of 2026?
Then, two back-to-back flood events in 2026. Higher flood levels than in 2025, hitting 15 feet on October 23 and 16.8 feet on November 1.
Still, as in 2025, Pagosa was not washed away. Downtown did not disappear.
But this year, at least a couple of homes were indeed swept downriver. Serious road damage occurred and several roads are currently closed, including portions of the main highways. At the moment, some homes have no running water. Some have no electricity. Some have no open transportation routes in or out.
I know I’m not the only person who’s wondering if this is Pagosa’s “new normal”.
And let’s be honest, Pagosa is looking at other challenges beyond the excessive flows in local rivers and creeks.
During the 1970s, as the local timber industry was winding down, Archuleta County was shifting economic gears, and betting its money on three new industries:
Tourism
Second home ownership
Recreation
These three industries — which were in a sense three facets of the same industry — would drive the other key industry, real-estate-home-construction.
The brand of tourism-second-home-ownership-recreation that Pagosa Springs could offer was, however, what we might call a “middle class” version. While many Colorado mountain resort towns were catering to the affluent visitor, Pagosa Springs was attracting middle-class folks from Texas, Arizona, and Oklahoma looking for a week or two in a mild mountain climate.
This new economy proved something of a roller coaster, depending as it did on the Texas oil economy, the housing market, and other factors, including decisions made by local governments.
Following back-to-back flood events in 2025 and again in 2026 — widely broadcast by national media outlets — and after a serious summertime drought following a relative lack of snow at Wolf Creek Ski Area…
…and with an unpopular war causing higher gas prices and inflation in general, and with increased mortgage interest rates…
…and with most local employers reporting difficulty hiring qualified employees…
…and with many qualified employees reporting difficulty finding housing they can afford…
Are we tempted to feel hopeful about 2027?
Or are we, perhaps, stocking the pantry with rice and beans?
Read Part Three… tomorrow…
Bill Hudson began sharing his opinions in the Pagosa Daily Post in 2004 and can't seem to break the habit. He claims that, in Pagosa Springs, opinions are like pickup trucks: everybody has one.