Receding floodwaters leave a sea of mud and shattered homes in the US Southwest

PAGOSA SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — The massive amounts of water that flooded parts of the U.S. Southwest turned some communities into lakes of mud, leaving residents dealing with the loss of homes and businesses as they started cleaning up Tuesday.Jack Ellis, a retired school teacher, surveyed the damage along the San Juan River in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, which went through two rounds of severe flooding in recent weeks.“This is quite a disaster for everybody, especially in the low-lying areas,” Ellis said. “We dig in and dig out, and that’s what it’s going to take."More than 20 trillion gallons of rain have fallen on the Four Corners states and Nevada in the past two weeks, according to calculations by former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief scientist Ryan Maue.The skies were clearing on Tuesday, but flood risks remained as all that water moves through the dry landscape where Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah meet. While hundreds of evacuees were returning home, s