Strong Winds Sweep Through Las Cruces

On a typical day, the Organ Mountains are a picturesque view, but by Monday afternoon, you would never even know it. Picacho Peak was also invisible, camouflaged in a thick haze.

Gusty winds howled through Las Cruces, coating the city in a layer of dust and creating treacherous road conditions.

“45 or 50 miles an hour because if you go any faster than that everything just starts flipping,? Mary Bellows, traveling through town with her husband from Michigan, said.

Bellows said she could feel her RV swaying back and fourth in the powerful gusts of wind, forcing her to take a break from the freeway.

“We stopped to get gas about 10 miles down the road and it was slowing so bad you couldn’t even see,” Bellows said.

Other motorists on the road experienced the same turbulence, and took extra precautions.

“If the trailer has got light weight we can just roll over, that’s why we try to drive carefully,” Jose Garcia, a truck driver, said.

Windstorms create some of the worst conditions for drivers, New Mexcio Department of Transportation officials said.

“It’s just not a safe situation with these high winds,? Bridget Spedialeri from NMDOT, said. ?It’s really hard to tell how it’s going to take a vehicle from one end to the other. We would encourage motorists as much as possible to just wait out the storm.”

NMDOT officials advised motorists to use extreme caution if travel was unavoidable.