Four Corners flood leaves four states sharing one puddle
Researchers watching the National Weather Service flood zone say days of rain have ruined the dry dirt keeping the four states apart.
"—and once the mud crosses the brass line, we simply have no way of knowing which state the puddle belongs to," said Dr. Helen Vance, lead soil watcher at the Southwest Boundary Institute. She said this on Thursday. Her team has been observing the Four Corners monument since the heavy rains began.
The National Weather Service issued a new flood watch for the region after days of storms forced water rescues and washed out roads. The researchers did not measure the rivers or the rescued residents. Instead, they measured the exact wetness of the dirt around the concrete slab where Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah touch.
Their study used a sample size of three buckets of mud. A control group of dry sand was kept inside a nearby sedan with the windows rolled up. The team found that water had made the four state corners run together into one continuous soup.
They calculated a p-value of 0.03. A p-value is a number that tells scientists whether a puddle is an accident or a permanent change to the map. Because the number is small, the states are officially smudged.
"If a citizen stands in the mud on Thursday, their boots are legally in three states at once, plus a fourth state that is mostly silt," Dr. Vance said. "This is the end of human geography as we know it. Also, someone's garage floated past our folding table at lunch."
The single state problem
The study warns that another round of thunderstorms will dissolve the border entirely. Without dry lines on the ground, all four governors will have to share one large desk until the dirt bakes hard again. The team suggests calling the new, muddy territory Utarizonacomeco.
"We tried to push the New Mexico mud back into New Mexico with a flat shovel," said field assistant Greg Trask. "The water just brought it right back into Utah. We are looking at total societal collapse in the gift shop parking lot."
Meanwhile, local emergency crews noted that swollen rivers were slowly receding before the next storm arrived. The researchers called the receding rivers a minor detail that distracted from the wet brass disk.
Dr. Vance noted that more study is needed before the states are permanently combined on highway signs. Her team has requested three billion dollars to buy a very large hair dryer and an extension cord that reaches Albuquerque.
