Ruidoso jewelry business devastated by flood

Sarah Rubinstein
Alamogordo News

Arnold Duke watched as his jewelry store Ruidoso Trading Post was washed away by the floodwaters that devastated his community on Tuesday.

A day later, Duke posted a video to Facebook covered in mud and announcing that he had lost his wholesale location, where online orders are fulfilled, to the flood.

“Our business has just washed away,” Duke said.

The flash flood also proved fatal as Sebastian Rowan Trotter, 7, his sister Charlotte Emery Trotter, 4, and Benjamin Feagin were later found dead.

And as the tragedies unfolded throughout the week, several businesses like Duke’s were also counted as casualties of the disaster.

Duke sold turquoise and silver jewelry from 400 different native artists since 1975 at the store at 2553 Sudderth Drive. He said he worked for decades to get the business up and running, and successful.

Much of that hard work was decimated, Duke said, when the waters poured in and destroyed his business.

“Everything we worked for all these years has been washed away in seconds,” he said.

He estimated that the jewelry he lost was worth “a couple million (dollars),” noting the jewelry is handmade and irreplaceable. Duke does not have insurance to cover the damage.

He said the wholesale location, from where Duke mails orders out, was destroyed while his retail location was untouched.

Workers who were at the wholesale location on Tuesday are also safe.

“I had two employees that were working that barely made it out of the building,” he said.

Currently, Duke is digging in the mud with a crew of people to rescue anything that can be salvageable, he said.

“The shock hasn’t worn off, but I’m pretty strong,” he said.

On the floor above the wholesale location is cannabis dispensary Elevation 6420. Store manager Sydney Remington reported that her location is okay and open for business.

“We’re open. A lot of friends here need their medicine, so I’m definitely here for them,” she said.

However, Remington noted that the homes surrounding her business have been destroyed.

“Luckily the dispensary wasn’t really touched but the homes right next door, they were completely submerged underwater, definitely 15 to almost 20 feet,” she said.