LA PLATA COUNTY — As Barney Miller cooked huevos rancheros at his creekside home in Vallecito on Tuesday, he glanced out the window. The sight was a relief: Four months ago, floodwaters tore through the community, flattening the creek bed and priming it to flood again with spring snowmelt.
Now, he sees a creek that is starting to resemble its former self, 10 feet deeper than it was after the floods and much less of a threat to his home.
“It was quite a mess, and all of that now is cleaned up,” Miller said, recalling crews driving equipment into the creek to dig up flood debris and haul it away. “It’s pretty impressive.”
Vallecito was one of several communities impacted by October flooding in southwestern Colorado. But even as the communities work to recover, there’s a question hanging in the air: Who’s going to pick up the bill?
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis asked President Donald Trump to approve a funding relief request for the southwestern Colorado flooding and two fires on the Western Slope. In December, the president denied that request, prompting an appeal and accusations from Democratic leaders that the Republican president was targeting the state.
Miller said he had to chuckle at the time. That request, which was for Federal Emergency Management Agency money, was never going to help his house anyway. He knew that even when the FEMA officials dropped by to assess damage to his property.
“We were hearing the rhetoric that all this FEMA money got pulled,” Miller said. “Well, there were very few situations that FEMA dollars were really going to affect the Vallecito flood recovery.”
In October, floodwaters rushed through the Vallecito, Piedra, San Juan and South Fork of the Rio Grande river basins. The historic floods destroyed two homes, damaged private roads and tore up lawns. The incident caused $13.82 million in damage to public roads, culverts and other infrastructure, plus debris removal costs, in La Plata, Archuleta and Mineral counties, according to the state’s Jan. 16 appeal.
In Rio Blanco County, the Elk fire and Lee fire, the fourth largest in Colorado history, were quickly followed by mudslides and debris flows in August. The disasters caused $27.5 million in damage as they swept through the county, hitting electrical lines and plugging irrigation systems along the way.
In his funding appeal, Polis said both the floods and fires “clearly exceeded FEMA’s indicators” for major disaster declarations, a formal call for federal aid when local and state resources aren’t enough.
But it’s Trump’s job to approve major disaster declaration requests — and that’s what opens up different types of federal support, like the FEMA funding.
The Trump administration is releasing billions of dollars in disaster aid that was previously awaiting approval from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Colorado, Minnesota, Illinois, California and the Virgin Islands are the only U.S. states and territories that would not receive public assistance awards, according to news reports Friday.
The president has no timeframe or deadline to respond to Colorado’s appeal, according to a FEMA spokesperson.
“Not interested in playing that game”
Trump’s decision came within weeks of canceling $109 million for environment and transportation projects in Colorado, announcing that the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder would be dismantled, vetoing a bill to fund a long-sought drinking water project in southwestern Colorado, and fighting with Polis over Tina Peters, the former Mesa County clerk convicted of orchestrating a breach of her county’s election system in 2021.
Rep. Jeff Hurd, a Republican from Grand Junction whose district was affected by both disasters, rebuked the decision to deny relief funding. Attorney General Phil Weiser, a Democrat, said he’d appeal immediately.
Democratic lawmakers, including U.S. Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, continue to say ongoing federal rollbacks are targeting Democratic states.
The last time Colorado’s electoral votes went to a Republican president was in 2004, but the Western Slope — where these disasters hit — has a history of electing Republicans.
Archuleta County and Rio Blanco counties favored Trump each of the three times he ran for president, according to the Colorado Secretary of State. La Plata County has a history of going blue, at least since 2004, but the Vallecito area voted for Trump in 2024.
For the communities impacted by the fires and floods, the political rhetoric is not helpful to anyone, officials said.
“We are not interested in playing that game in Rio Blanco County,” said Callie Scritchfield, a Republican Rio Blanco County Commissioner who lives near Meeker.
But in some cases, losing those FEMA funds is going to make recovery much more difficult.
“It’s frustrating — don’t get me wrong — and it does make you question and guess,” Scritchfield said. “That does not help Rio Blanco County at all. I’d just as soon stay out of that.”
In Archuleta County, Warren Brown, a Republican county commissioner, hesitated to say whether he was optimistic about the FEMA appeal. Even if the money was approved, it could take a long time to actually reach the county and town of Pagosa Springs. Now they’re just waiting to see what happens, he said.
He hoped the Trump administration was not targeting Colorado — that this was simply the process communities have to go through to get these funds.
“But at the end of the day, I really don’t know. We’re so far removed from Washington, D.C.,” he said. “We’re not in the conversations behind the doors. We’re not involved with FEMA at the federal level on a daily basis.”
Fire recovery on the Western Slope
In August, the Lee fire blazed over miles of electrical transmission lines, knocking out the region’s primary and secondary sources of electrical power and causing an estimated $24 million in damage. The third line, which is now having to serve as the new primary line and does not have a backup, is older, more vulnerable to failure and can only carry a lower load, according to the state.
White River Electric Association is “cautiously optimistic” about the funding appeal, spokesperson Kari Matrisciano said.
“We are hopeful that the Trump Administration understands how important a healthy electrical infrastructure is to the oil and gas industry in the Piceance Basin and reacts to the appeal accordingly,” she wrote in an email to The Colorado Sun.
Until then, the damaged power system will have ripple effects on oil and gas production, mining operation, ranching and the local economy, according to the state’s appeal.
“For a rural community that’s already struggling — businesses and homeowners — it’s in the back of everybody’s mind just how expensive our electricity is going to get,” Scritchfield said.
The fires and mudslides deposited a foot-deep layer of sticks, rocks and debris on hayfields, burned a broadband tower, filled in irrigation ditches and blocked drainage culverts under roads, Scritchfield said. They destroyed about 80 miles of fences, which could cost millions of dollars to repair. It’s not clear where that money will come from, she added.
The FEMA funding was never meant to cover all of the local impacts, officials said.
Polis initially requested funding from FEMA’s public assistance program for Rio Blanco, Archuleta, La Plata and Mineral counties, plus statewide funding from the agency’s hazard mitigation program.
Public assistance funding, for example, only goes to eligible costs like debris removal, life-saving emergency protective measures, and restoring public roads, bridges, water facilities and other public infrastructure, FEMA said. The program reimburses state and local governments — not private property owners — after they pay for the initial work.
The state and local communities have other ways to cover recovery expenses.
Polis authorized $6 million for the southwestern floods and $18.5 million for the fire response. Communities can seek funding from other federal agencies, like the Natural Resources Conservation Service and the Agriculture Department.
But without the FEMA funding, the work will be slower, less robust and more of a burden on local residents, the state’s appeal said.
And the people of Rio Blanco County are already worried about next summer — especially after a record dry winter.
“When people see smoke right now, it invokes horrible fear,” Scritchland said.
Neighbors helping neighbors after the floods
In Vallecito, community members are working together to decide what to do with debris, rocks and trees. They finally were able to access and move a crushed snowmobile.
The small, remote community is on the hook for about $626,000 in recovery costs to repair flooded creeks. If that total were to be split between around 200 creekside properties, it could cost up to $3,000 per property owner. The rest of project cost, $5.6 million, will be covered by the state of Colorado and the Natural Resources Conservation Service.
For Miller, the Vallecito homeowner, the lack of help from FEMA and the county was frustrating, but he’s confident the community can take care of itself. The local fire district, Upper Pine River Fire Protection District, took on a leading role, scoping out the damage, organizing community meetings and coordinating with the federal government. (They’re also looking for charitable donations and other ways to help the residents pay their share, but a lot of that is still in flux, the district said.)
It was nearly miraculous, he said, to see the work done so quickly by the district and local contractors — even if it was just on a small stretch of the damaged area.
“Without the fire department stepping in … we wouldn’t have any work at all being done or a plan that is being put together,” Miller said. “It’s extraordinary, I’ll be honest. I’m a believer.”
In Archuleta County, community members are, once again, left to help each other. That’s the norm for the area: Historically, they’ve been very self-sufficient. They don’t ask for a lot of help from the federal government, said Brown, the county commissioner.
The October floods caused about $956,000 in damage to the sewer system for San Juan Village Metro District, a 361-lot community. It will cost about a million dollars to restore the San Juan River’s banks and channel — a major tourism and economic driver for the community — after the floods destroyed fish habitat and created boulder-sized recreation hazards.
The costliest impact for the three southwestern Counties was about $10.4 million worth of damage to roads, according to the state’s initial relief request in November. The road damage in Archuleta County is in an area so remote that officials had to choose between paying a transport charge of $25,000 per road-mile for replacement gravel or building a local gravel pit.
“Archuleta County is one of the poorer counties in the state, and we have a very tight budget,” Brown said. “We just do not have the kind of reserves that would allow us to make all of these repairs that are needed.”
The county has worked to stabilize the roads, but they aren’t back to preflood condition. Officials are looking to the FEMA funding for relief.
“People pay taxes their entire life and may never ask or receive much of anything from the government,” Brown said. “I know there is a sentiment among some that, the one time you ask for help and expect help — and believe that this is an event that would qualify for help — you learn differently.”