NPR reported that flooding complicated Election Day travel in Dennehotso, Arizona, where volunteers provided rides and a temporary road was being built to give isolated residents access to polls.
Flooding affected the Navajo Reservation over a four-week stretch and forced thousands of people from their homes, NPR said. The reservation extends into Arizona, Utah and New Mexico, and Dennehotso had three floods in the month before the Nov. 3 election.
The major flood in Dennehotso began Oct. 22. NPR reported damage to homes and newly built roads, along with interruptions to water and electricity. A thick layer of mud covered parts of the town.
Kev Woolboy, a local contractor helping coordinate the response, said rain overwhelmed earth dams constructed to slow floodwater. He told NPR the barriers “didn’t stand a chance.”
Election Day access remained a work in progress. A backhoe was making a temporary passage intended to restore access for people separated from town, NPR reported. Volunteers and Chapter employees separately drove voters to the Chapterhouse polling site, and some people traveled for hours.
Urbina Yazzie, 27, told NPR that some people used tractors to cross from one usable road stretch to another. “I love to see our people come out,” she said.
NPR’s account of the Oct. 22 flood also described an unsuccessful attempt that night to reach Phyllis Yazzie, 74, who had tried to leave with her son as water cut deep channels around their home. They stayed overnight in a vehicle on higher ground. Woolboy, serving as a local guide for the Navajo Police Department, approached with officers in an amphibious vehicle, but turned back when he saw the road had disappeared.
Lilien Begay, 92, was at the polling site with her daughter Vera Begay. She had lost her home and identification documents, Vera told NPR. Vera said her mother had never missed an election during her life. NPR said residents remained occupied with flood cleanup nearly two weeks after the Oct. 22 event.
