Fierce winds, thunderstorms, heavy downpours and funnel clouds hit the city of Hagerman on June 26, leaving behind a trail of damaged property and power outages.

No injuries were reported, but local officials and residents said Thursday that their community was hit hard, with trees knocked down and structures, including a barn and a residence, destroyed.

On Wednesday, June 26, at 6:25 p.m., the National Weather Service in Albuquerque posted on X that weather spotters had observed landspouts near Dexter and Hagerman that came in on the western edge of a cluster of storms.

Landspouts are caused by instability in lower portions of the atmosphere, according to Clay Anderson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Albuquerque. A landspout is a weaker and smaller type of tornado formed through instability in the lowest parts of the atmosphere and typically lasts no longer than 15 minutes.

The National Weather Service is unclear about when and how many landspouts touched down, but Hagerman Police Chief Rachelle Bateman said she began receiving a torrent of videos and photos of them at 5:42 p.m. from at least four locations in and around the city.

“We had numerous people saying there was a tornado that had touched down,” she said.

The landspouts coincided with a thunderstorm that brought with it winds of up to 91 mph and dropped an inch of rain in neighboring Lake Arthur, producing some flooding.

Hagerman saw considerable damage in the downtown and surrounding areas, Bateman said.

“We had downed power lines, we had numerous trees down, one tree fell on top of a house, another on top of an SUV,” she said. Some residents had roofs torn off of sheds and barns.

Some of the worst impacts were on and near Morgan Road. Joseph Knight, who lives near Morgan Road, said his house bore the brunt of the landspout.

“I worried about the wind taking my roof. It was leaking in the bedroom, there was a huge branch in the front yard, and I worried about another coming into the house,” Knight recalled.

A mobile home on Morgan Road was destroyed by the winds.

Power outages and downed poles were also reported near Dexter and Hagerman.

Central Valley Electric Cooperative said on its Facebook page that 40 to 50 electric poles sustained damage and eight transmissions were down in Daggar Draw, leading to power outages in the Dark Canyon area.

Wes Reeves, a senior media relations representative for Xcel Energy, said in an email to the Roswell Daily Record that 642 customers serviced by a substation in Dexter experienced what Reeves called “a momentary outage” at 5:49 p.m., followed by a sustained outrage at 10:41 p.m.

“Their service was restored at 1:54 a.m. after a thorough patrol of the line showed everything was safe to re- energize,” Reeves said.

Chaves County Undersheriff Charles Yslas said U.S. 285 South between mile markers 83 and 90 had to be temporarily closed to traffic due to accidents caused by motorists who had stopped abruptly amid low visibility and brownout conditions.

“When the deputies got down there, they reported to me several motor vehicle accidents at the intersection of Highway 82 and 285, as well as debris in the roadway,” Yslas said. The highway reopened at 7:30 p.m.

Silver Wilson of the New Mexico State Police media relations unit confirmed that they handled two accidents on the southbound lane of U.S. 285, one at mile marker 84 at 7:15 p.m. and the other at mile marker 85 at 7:30 p.m.

Wilson said there were no injuries in either accident.

Despite the scale of the damage, Bateman said that by Thursday morning, most of the downed trees within city limits were cleaned up and roads were all open.