Posted on 07/24/2008 4:26:03 PM PDT by SwinneySwitch
MATAMOROS, Mexico — Usually, the 9,000 people on Officer Arcadio Escobar’s beat aren’t too happy to see him go by.
But as the deluge from Hurricane Dolly turned the rough Independencia neighborhood here into a nasty brown lake that filled people’s houses
Wednesday, he suddenly became one of the most popular guys around. Escobar had exactly 12 hours and 10 gallons of gas — his allotment for the day — to follow a single order: Evacuate people.
But the gas ran out before his city police shift did, and the floodwaters, already up to the doors of the patrol pickup, got too high before he could get to everyone.
“There are still a lot of people in their houses and they are asking help,” said Escobar, taking notes from evacuees on the locations of others in distress.
One was Bertha Casares, whose evacuation decision was a tough choice.
“We didn’t think it was going to be a big deal,” she said after wading out of her house in water up to her hips, her children and elderly mother in tow. “Life is worth more than possessions.”
Casares was one of 120 people plucked from the water by Escobar and one of some 13,000-plus evacuees who sought refuge in government shelters as Dolly flooded large swaths of this low-lying city across the Rio Grande from Brownsville.
The government deployed 1,800 soldiers and state police to Matamoros to prevent residents from sacking shuttered stores.
Near the river’s mouth, military personnel in patrol boats battled rising waters to rescue several families trapped in their homes, according to news reports.
Mexico’s state-owned oil company, Petróleos Mexicanos, evacuated 66 workers from an offshore rig near the Tamaulipas coast, the company said.
“A lot of people don’t leave because there are people waiting until you go just to rob you,” said Salvador de la Rosa, 24, as he rode in the back of Escobar’s pickup. “We left because of my daughter.”
He said he’s not always sure whose side the cops are on, a sentiment many share south of the border.
The pickup pushed brown waves of water through the street, making people walking through it jump as if playing in the surf on the beach.
Dozens asked for help. Some just applauded.
The normally crowded and chaotic streets of Reynosa — and normally busy bridges across the border to the McAllen area — were deserted and nearly 500 people were in 10 shelters by late afternoon. More were expected, said Francisco Cano, deputy chief of Reynosa’s Civil Protection office.
“We’re sending around units to get out those who want to leave,” he said.
But most poor residents of the frequently flooded neighborhoods between the river and a flood canal were riding it out.
In a mud-street collection of shacks built almost atop the river levee, Tito Santiago was digging a shallow trench around the small house he, his wife and two children have shared for a few months since moving here from Chiapas state.
Although the rain had soaked most of the family’s bedding and food, Santiago said they weren’t leaving.
“The storms are much worse back home,” Santiago said.
Houston Chronicle reporter Marion Lloyd contributed to this report from Mexico City. Express-News Mexico Correspondent Sean Mattson reported from Matamoros, and Houston Chronicle reporter Dudley Althaus reported from Reynosa
Mexican officials scramble to find flood victims[of Hurricane Dolly]
Uuuummmm, has anyone checked Texas...I would start there.
Matamoros ping!
If you want on, or off this S. Texas/Mexico ping list, please FReepMail me.
Dolly will never go away.
EXACTLY! The ‘hands-off’ policy from BP/ICE opened a path 200 miles wide for several thousand to move north.
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