70 mph winds and hail cause damage in the Upper Valley

Storms formed quickly Sunday afternoon in the Borderland resulting in damaging consequences.

The Upper Valley was hit especially hard, including the communities of Canutillo and Anthony.

In Canutillo, a foot of mud covered Doniphan Drive. TXDOT crews worked throughout the day Monday to clear the mud and debris.

Some homes and businesses in Canutillo were also flooded.

County Commissioner Andrew Haggerty acknowledged drainage is an issue in Canutillo. “It’s a two fold problem, one is how many different entities have to be involved with the flooding corrections, federal, state, county, city, local, getting everyone to play ball,” Haggerty said, “And just the hundreds of millions of dollars it will cost to fix, so unfortunately we just have to keep going out and fixing any damage that happens.”

The storm also hit Anthony hard, with the worst of it coming from wind and hail and not the heavy rain.

“It was just white with hail, there were drifts of hail up against the house, we dug through some of the hail out of curiosity and some of it was as big as an inch,” Paul Blakely said.

The hail shredded Pecan trees in the area and an anemometer at Blakely’s home recorded a wind gust of 71 mph before it was torn apart. The winds ripped a 190 foot long roof off a horse barn owned by Blakely’s neighbor and threw it about 50 feet. Despite the barn being full, only one horse had minor injuries.

The National Weather Service estimates the damage was likely caused by strong straight-line winds.