U.S. 160 is closed from Wolf Creek Pass through South Fork and in Pagosa Springs as the San Juan River heads for a forecast 22-foot crest — above the 1911 record

The flooding that CDLWire tracked into Pagosa Springs on Sunday has now closed the highway itself. The Colorado Department of Transportation has closed U.S. 160 from Wolf Creek Pass through South Fork, and again in downtown Pagosa Springs, along with two other state highways, according to Colorado Public Radio on Nov. 1. This is no longer a forecast story: the main east–west route across southern Colorado is shut in the mountains and in the town it serves.

The full state-highway closure list, as Colorado Public Radio reported it from the transportation department, is short and severe. U.S. 160 is closed from Wolf Creek Pass through South Fork, and in downtown Pagosa Springs. CO 17 is closed from Alamosa down to the New Mexico state line. CO 151 is closed from Chimney Rock to Arboles. Below the state system, the local picture is worse: La Plata County has temporarily closed all of its county roads, and Montezuma County listed seven county roads closed Sunday afternoon, with water or debris crossing six more spots. The National Weather Service office in Grand Junction, in a flood warning for Montezuma County issued at 4:08 p.m. Sunday and running until 4:15 p.m. Monday, wrote that some local roads “have washed out, or collapsed completely,” and labeled the situation “a PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS SITUATION.”

The driver of all of it is the San Juan River at Pagosa Springs. The National Weather Service forecast the river to crest at 22 feet on Sunday evening, surpassing both last week’s flooding and the record 17.8-foot crest of the 1911 flood that wiped out most of the town that existed at the time, according to the Archuleta County Sheriff’s Office. By sundown Sunday, the river had reached about 14 feet, according to Archuleta County spokesperson Vicky Schaffer, as reported by the Associated Press — still rising toward a crest the sheriff’s office calls a “potentially catastrophic flood event.” The weather service’s flood watch for the Four Corners runs until at least 11 a.m. Monday, with one to three inches of rain possible, and a separate flood watch covers the San Luis Valley into late Tuesday.

Evacuations in Archuleta County are mandatory for low-lying areas along four rivers — the San Juan, Rio Blanco, Navajo and Piedra — while other residents are advised to shelter in place. “PLEASE TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY,” the sheriff’s office warned Sunday morning. “Conditions are changing rapidly, and emergency responders may not be able to reach you when the storm is at its worst.” Pagosa Springs closed to inbound traffic at 2 p.m. Sunday; outbound traffic may leave as road conditions allow, and re-entry will not be permitted until authorities decide it is safe. The sheriff’s office is also warning that sewage is being discharged into the San Juan River near the First Street bridge, and that residents should avoid contact with the water.

Archuleta is not the only county moving people. In Conejos County, evacuation orders cover the corridor from Platoro down the Conejos River Canyon to Fox Creek and Mogote, plus Ortiz, San Antonio and Guadalupe, and the rest of the county of 7,500 people is in pre-evacuation status. In La Plata County, evacuation orders cover three mobile home parks and homes north of Lakin Street in Ignacio, and evacuations were also ordered in Durango, where the Animas River was rising quickly. In Rio Grande and Mineral Counties, evacuations run along the Rio Grande, including Del Norte, South Fork and Monte Vista. Niki Carpenter, a public information officer for the State of Colorado, explained why this round is outrunning last week’s: this storm is warmer, so snow melt will flow downstream on top of the rain, on ground that remains saturated and has little capacity to absorb more.

The same storm system is working on the region from both ends of the thermometer. While the valleys flood, the National Weather Service expects parts of the San Juan Mountains above 10,000 feet to see 12 to 18 inches of new snow under the winter storm warnings CDLWire reported Sunday morning, which run through Monday on Wolf Creek Pass and Red Mountain Pass. And the rain is falling on ground saturated by last week’s storms, which shut U.S. 160 west of Cortez for three days and led the Colorado Department of Transportation to ask Washington for $65 million in emergency repair money — the corridor was already damaged, and the repair bill already written, before this weekend’s water arrived.

The freight consequence is the one a Pagosa Springs business owner put plainly to the Associated Press. Katie German, owner and chef of Bruin Coffee, said she was most worried about the one bridge into town washing out and trucks carrying everything from food to fuel not having a way in. U.S. 160 has no nearby parallel detour, the county roads that might serve as workarounds are closed or washing out across at least two counties, and the town at the center of it is closed to inbound traffic. The working rule for Monday is to treat southwestern Colorado as closed, not merely slow: check COtrip before rolling anywhere in the Four Corners or the San Luis Valley, do not route onto county roads to get around a state-highway closure, never cross flooded pavement, and expect closures to outlast the crest itself, because washed-out roads do not reopen when the water drops.