Three generations of a Navajo family were returning home with supplies for an eighth-birthday celebration when their truck became trapped in mud as powerful storms swept through the area.
Kalisi Begay decided to walk the rest of the way home, while her mother and 7-year-old daughter remained with the vehicle. The floodwater began rising rapidly.
The grandmother and granddaughter, along with a friend who had been called to help, were soon carried away by rushing water as they attempted to cross a wash.
Elsie Begay, her granddaughter Lucy Allison Mike and Begay’s close friend Dora Franklin died Tuesday in the flooding near Newcomb, New Mexico, a community of roughly 400 residents, relatives said Friday.
“I think she was just wanting to get home,” said Stella Wilson, Begay’s niece.
Flash flooding across the Navajo Nation has damaged roads, prompted evacuations and taken three lives this week, as a late-season burst of monsoon moisture brought intense rainfall to the Four Corners region.
Navajo police said three families in Shiprock, New Mexico, were evacuated Friday evening as water levels climbed and flooding spread near the San Juan River.
Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren declared a state of emergency Friday while some communities remained cut off by floodwater and damaged roads. Rain continued, and numerous roads across the Navajo Nation were still closed.
“Please use alternate routes, check on our elders and relatives, and follow the guidance of our emergency personnel,” Nygren said in a statement.
In Mexican Springs, a small community about 40 miles south of Newcomb, floodwater turned many dirt and gravel roads into impassable stretches, leaving some families stranded and preventing others from reaching home.
“A lot of ditches are washed out, the culvert pipes are gone. There’s big old, massive holes in the road,” said Darnell Etsitty, a local government maintenance worker who spent Friday creating alternate routes for residents.
Etsitty said the Mexican Springs Chapter House was being used as a temporary shelter, while volunteers traveled by ATV to bring food, water and other necessities to households cut off by the flooding.
Wilson said dangerous road conditions continued to prevent her family from reaching her mother. She urged residents to remain patient and wait for assistance.
“I just want to make sure other families make it home,” she said.
Elsie Begay worked as a business technician at Sanostee Day School, where Mike was a third-grade student. Franklin drove a school bus for another nearby school.
Wilson said both Begay and Franklin cared deeply about children. Begay decorated the school’s front office for each holiday, welcomed everyone who came through the doors and took part in fundraisers and community events. Franklin, she said, often handed candy to children as they boarded the bus.
Mike had recently been named “Miss Sanostee Day School” on Sept. 4 and was eagerly anticipating her eighth-birthday party the following Tuesday. Wilson remembered her niece as “beautiful” and “bright.”
“She was a big blessing to her family,” Wilson said.
