RUIDOSO, N.M. — It’s been one week since severe flooding caused the Village of Ruidoso to evacuate. Several homes and businesses were put at risk again on the heels of the deadly South Fork and Salt fires.

“Once you feel like everything is back to normal, then, boom, something else hit,” said Kaitlyn Carpenter, Bridge to Art Studio owner. “Friday I actually took back my stuff from when we evacuated. I went back and put all of my art stuff back because I think we were free and clear of the fire danger. I wasn’t expecting the flooding that we got.”

Carpenter has owned Bridge to Art Studio since 2021. She started the studio after seeing a need for more art activities in Ruidoso.

“I’ve been doing art my whole life and I just had the avenue to start doing it here, so I decided to open up a studio for paint classes and then wine and paint classes and it has been amazing,” she said.

Now, more than three years later, the studio was destroyed by flooding.

“We were just pushing water through, pushing water through, and that is all we could do, just try and get out as much water as we could,” Carpenter said. “I was not prepared for that level of devastation and destruction.”

Carpenter is taking donations on her website to get back on her feet. She is still working on clearing out all the mud and debris. She doesn’t expect to be open anytime soon.

“It’s hard to come to terms that it happened, but you just have to deal with it and move forward,” Carpenter said. “Hopefully we can clear it out but I am worried about future floods now, that is a big thing.”

Her business is just one of many that was damaged by flooding. Despite everything, she says it’s the community that keeps her going.

“I am just so proud of our community, it is just everyone has been helping everybody else, and it has been great despite the fact that it happened,” Carpenter said.