ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – The City of Albuquerque dried itself out after flash flooding led to multiple water rescues Saturday night.

“We received 142 calls between 8 p.m. and midnight, which is unusual for us. We usually run roughly about 260 calls in a 24-hour period,” said Emily Jaramillo, the chief of Albuquerque Fire Rescue.

Photos showed AFR pulling people out of their stalled cars near the American Legion in northeast Albuquerque. 

“We were able to respond to all of those calls for service. We didn’t have anything second pending, or anything that didn’t get responded to that came through 911,” Chief Jaramillo said. 

One person reported seeing two people in the arroyo. AFR did not locate anyone and sent out another search team Sunday morning.  

“We had one swift water rescue. BCFR put up a drone to see if there’s any need for body recovery,” the chief said.

Road closures and power outages began around 7:30 p.m. Saturday. That affected Albuquerque’s largest pump station. It also knocked power out of two of the four pumps working until 1 a.m. Officials built the pump station to manage flooding in the downtown area.

“It’s hard to believe this entire pond was full and spilled out into the neighborhood. And had that pond not been there you would have what we had 25 years ago,” Mayor Tim Keller said. 

Keller says flooding Saturday night reached extremes that Albuquerque hasn’t seen in a long time.

City officials are working on restoring streetlights and three damaged transit buses.