US south-west braces for more flooding after stretch of heavy rain and storms

A rain-soaked swath of the south-west US braced on Sunday for another round of potentially heavy showers and thunderstorms after days of rain forced evacuations and water rescues.

The National Weather Service issued a flood watch for much of the Four Corners – the meeting point of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah – even as local officials forecast further receding of swollen rivers that surged since rains picked up on Wednesday.

About 4ft (1 meter) of water flooded the home of Shane Ferrari, the sheriff of San Juan county, New Mexico. He said the area’s situation was stable on Sunday, but he and other residents were trying to clean up and deal with damage.

San Juan county spokesperson Devin Neeley said the county did not have official numbers on damage to homes or the number of people evacuated, but he was not aware of any loss of life.

Flooding in the Gould Wash drainage watercourse in Hurricane, Utah, on Thursday. Photograph: Landon Christensen/AP

Neeley said the flood waters were receding but left mud and silt, much of which has been contaminated with sewage because of failures at waste plants. There were still power outages affecting multiple areas, and it would probably be a few days until residents got their power back on.

“It’s a pretty active disaster zone,” he said. “We’re not on the downswing by any means.”

The flooding is just the latest from two months of on-and-off heavy rain caused by tropical moisture coming ashore from the Pacific. After months of drought, other recent deadly flooding struck the Grand Canyon and areas of New Mexico.

Pickup trucks are submerged along Highway 160 in South Fork, Colorado, on Friday. Photograph: South Fork Fire Rescue/AP