Tucson, Arizona Tuesday, 29 July 2003
Ignacio Ibarra / Staff Floodwaters flow down Calle Reforma toward downtown Nogales, Sonora, near the Mariposa port of entry. |
By Ignacio Ibarra
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
NOGALES, Sonora - Residents here spent Monday removing tons of mud and debris from streets and homes, a day after a powerful monsoon flooded downtown, closed one border entry and backed up traffic at another for hours.
A week of heavy storms has left two people dead, knocked down walls and ripped roofs off homes in this city of about 350,000 people. And more rain is expected in the region this week, particularly in the mountainous areas like Nogales.
Flooding affected low-lying areas throughout the city, where many major streets follow the course of natural stream beds.
And in the hills, landslides caused by rushing waters damaged homes and streets.
Water poured over the covered Nogales Wash, the city's principal drainage channel, which flows into the United States.
One child was injured when a retaining wall of built-up tires collapsed in one of several mudslides. There were also several reports of vehicles stranded in rushing water.
Last week a woman and her 15-year-old nephew were swept away from a stranded vehicle during an earlier storm. The boy's body was found in the Nogales Wash about a mile from the border in Nogales, Ariz. The woman remains missing.
Among the hardest-hit communities Sunday was Buenos Aires, built on the steep hills just east of the downtown area and butting up against the U.S. border. On Calle Buenos Aires, mud and debris clogged drainage channels and sent water roiling down the street, lifting chunks of pavement.
Cristo Rey Gonzales, a taco vendor, was working his regular corner of Calle Buenos Aires and Plutarco Elias Calles when the rain started about 3:30 p.m.
After about 45 minutes, the water in the streets rose to nearly the height of the tires on an average-sized car, forcing Gonzales to pile his wares on top of his vehicle to keep them from washing away, he said.
Then he heard a loud rumbling "and turned to see a piece of the pavement coming up. It scared me because this street is built over the wash, and I thought the cover was about to collapse," he said Monday, as city crews worked to remove the broken pavement and unclog drains behind him.
"We get floods regularly, but it had been a while since I'd seen something like this."
A short distance away on International Street, Buenos Aires resident Jorge Garcia and his family were digging out about 3 inches of silty mud carried into their home by floodwaters.
With rain clouds gathering overhead, furniture, clothing and other personal belongings were piled in the mud-covered yard. Four vehicles pulled from the flooded yard where drying out nearby, all of them badly damaged by the rain.
"This never used to happen until they put up that iron wall," said an angry Garcia, pointing to the landing-mat fence along the border across the street from his home, blocking a wash that once ran freely into the United States.
The wall now acts as a dam, holding back the water and mud that found its way into his home when part of a retaining wall at the back of the property gave way.
"We lost everything, we don't have any food or clothing, there's nothing left," Garcia said. "I've called everyone I can think of - the city, the Border Patrol, the International Boundary and Water Commission - and they say no one can help us but us."
Miriam Romero and her co-workers spent their morning sweeping water and mud from a downtown dress shop where they work. The flooding, Romero said, is all too common an occurrence in Nogales.
"You get used to it and you try to prepare, but yesterday was worse than usual," she said. "I don't know what needs to be done - better design for the streets, higher sidewalks - but something needs to be done."
On Sunday, afternoon storm runoff flooded northbound lanes and inspection booths, closing the Dennis DeConcini Port of Entry for more than two hours. Two lanes reopened briefly at about 5:15 but closed again after a second storm hit.
Partial service was resumed about 7:15 p.m. Sunday.
The closure of the downtown port of entry sent northbound travelers to the Mariposa Port of Entry. Hundreds of cars backed up at that commercial entry, which remained open until about midnight, two hours longer than usual, to accommodate the traffic.
On Monday, traffic remained backed up for more than 10 blocks into Mexico as city workers cleared the downtown streets of debris.
National Weather Service meteorologist John Glueck said monsoons along the border tend to be stronger and drop more rain than those that hit farther into the United States.
"They normally have more rainfall because locations along the border are closer to the moisture source" for storms coming in from the southeast, he said.
Despite the damage, this summer's rains still lag behind normal rainfall levels, said Martin Ricardo Barron, chief of meteorology for the National Water Commission in Hermosillo. He said about 0.7 of an inch fell Sunday in Nogales.
He said Nogales, Sonora, gets more than 14 inches of rain per year on average, with more than 65 percent coming from summer storms.
* Contact reporter Ignacio Ibarra at (520) 432-2766 or at nacho1@mindspring.com.