Depending on your algorithm, you may be clueless about what is going on in southeastern Utah, or you may be—forgive the pun—inundated with images of it: drone footage of Bluff’s homes and businesses standing in brown water, roads that have become channels, the Bluff Community Foundation’s headquarters, where donations for the last flood were being stored, flooded in this one. At times the coverage verges on disaster porn. But the destruction and the tragedy are real.

In late October, the San Juan River rose through the Navajo Nation communities of Aneth and Montezuma Creek, where about 150 people evacuated overnight, then on to Bluff, where dozens were displaced. At Atcitty Camp, a few miles outside Bluff, all eight households lost their homes. This past weekend, Cottonwood Wash flooded Bluff again, forcing evacuations Sunday night and a shelter-in-place order Monday morning. As of Tuesday, the river was expected to crest again Wednesday and Thursday, possibly higher than before, all along the corridor.

The photographs coming out of these towns this week are, understandably, of water. We have a different set, taken in early September, six weeks before the first flood: the public art of Aneth, Montezuma Creek, and Bluff.

If you’d like to help, the Bluff Community Foundation is collecting donations for flood relief at bluffcommunityfoundation.org/relief. For the Navajo communities along the river, NavajoStrong, a Native-led nonprofit, is posting updates on its relief efforts on Instagram.

In Plain Site

With our In Plain Site byline we feature publicly viewable art, both official and street art, throughout the state of Utah.