Sunday, September 8, 2024

Ruidoso prepares for evacuee return amid ongoing infrastructure challenges

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People in the Ruisodo area are preparing for the return of evacuees.

“The infrastructure, is gonna be a big one. The water supplies, the utilities is big,” Steve Silva, General Manager of Anaheim Jacks, said. “You know, there’s still so many areas still without power.”

Elected officials said they were lifting the evacuation order for much of the area by Monday morning, but some say it’ll be difficult to ready the area for proper living conditions.

Everything,” Victor Rodriguez said of the to-do list. “I mean power lines, gas, it needs to get fixed before everybody starts to come in.

Rodriguez, an employee at Alto Cafe, preached caution to locals desperate to return.

“Everybody’s getting crazy trying to come in, they can’t, so they need to wait,” he said.

Not everyone was concerned about the evacuees returning.

“Yeah, I feel safe, I’m not worried about stuff,” Pete Blanchard, owner of Alto Cafe, said. “It’s their life, they should be able to take care of what they want to do. Everybody would like to be back to some kind of normalcy.”

One fire official also recommended caution to returning residents.

“Consider the hardships, look at our Facebook page press release. And understand the conditions you may come back to,” Michael Scales of the Southwest Area Incident Management Team told KFOX14. “If you do come, please don’t come back and start touring the neighborhood. You gotta stay out of the way.”

You can find up to date information at the Incident Team’s Facebook page.

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