Crews are tearing out soaked carpet, replacing flooring and ripping down water-damaged drywall at Charlie Y. Brown High School in Bloomfield, as restoration work continues following flood damage to the building. The school district says it is hopeful students can return to the building by February 2027.
Restoration efforts are underway at the school, according to the district, as reported by KOAT. The work includes cleaning and replacing flooring and carpet, along with replacing drywall that was damaged when floodwaters hit the school. The district shared photos on social media showing crews at work inside the building.
A Hopeful Timeline, Not a Confirmed One
For now, the district is describing February 2027 as a hopeful target for reopening the building to students, rather than a locked-in date. Crews are continuing to work through the building, tackling flooring, carpet and drywall as part of the broader restoration effort.
The damage at Charlie Y. Brown High School did not happen in isolation. Bloomfield was among the small towns along the San Juan River that saw historic flooding, according to NPR, which reported that towns stretching from Pagosa Springs, Colorado, to Bluff, Utah, are all now assessing recovery challenges.
River Surged From 3.5 Feet to 14 Feet in a Day and a Half
The scale of the flooding becomes clear in the numbers from Farmington, where the San Juan River rose from about 3.5 feet in the early hours of Thursday to 14 feet by Friday, roughly 36 hours later, per the same NPR report. That kind of rapid rise overwhelmed infrastructure across the region, not just in Bloomfield.
Flooding in northwest New Mexico, including areas near Bloomfield, affected as many as 1,500 homes and buildings and triggered dozens of water rescues on Thursday and Friday, according to Searchlight New Mexico. All schools in the affected area closed that Friday because of the flooding, the outlet reported.
City Shut Down Water Plant Before Floodwaters Arrived
The city of Bloomfield managed to shut down its water reclamation facility before floodwaters reached it, restarting the plant later that Friday, Searchlight New Mexico's report noted.
The broader financial toll of the flooding is still coming into focus. New Mexico's governor estimated that environmental, road and infrastructure damage from the flooding could run between $200 million and $300 million, according to NPR. Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham signed executive orders making an additional $8.25 million in state funding available for flood response, and the federal government has partially granted the state's request for an emergency declaration tied to the disaster, the outlet reported.
Back in Bloomfield, the focus remains on the day-to-day work of restoring Charlie Y. Brown High School. Crews continue to replace flooring, carpet and drywall as the district works toward its hoped-for February 2027 return for students.
