SWOPblogger

karlos says: the following piece is comprehensive (read long:) But it's an important read. As always, Kent Patterson seeks out his sources.

Joaquin Lujan, SWOP organizer, knows well what Patterson talks about. He keeps calling from Polvadera (n. of Socorro) complaining about a "big mud puddle" where his fields once were.

Background
This year's Border Social Forum, scheduled for October 13-15 in Cuidad Juarez, will have many groups and representatives from the Gulf Coast who will be on hand to share their experiences and talk about real paths for working solidarity between the regions. SWOP, Southwest Workers'Union and Southern Echo have met about a South by Southwest initiative to begin to connect the two poverty torn regions historically, politically and culturally.

August 13, 2006
FNS Feature

Recovering from the Borderland's Little Katrina
Legendary for its sparse rainfall and blistering dry heat, the Paso del Norte region of the US-Mexico borderlands was jolted by torrential storms and floods in late July and early August. Living in an area that normally receives only about 9 inches of rainfall per year, residents were drenched with nearly the same amount of precipitation in just a few days. Streets were turned into small raging rivers, homes crumbled under the weight of water, mud crashed into houses, and land peeled away in the sheets of rain. The deluge followed a July 6 storm that also disrupted life in the border zone. According to the US Drought Monitor, 6 inches of rain clobbered the El Paso area in the 7-day period ending on August 5.

Assessments of the damage to human life and property are still in progress, but preliminary reports from the press, government agencies, non-governmental organizations and residents sketch a portrait of widespread property destruction and loss of family and public patrimony in Ciudad Juarez, southern New Mexico and El Paso County,
Texas.

"From what we have seen, (Ciudad Juarez) resembles a mined zone-as if there had been a war in our city," said Gabriel Flores Miramontes, the president of the Ciudad Juarez branch of the Canacintra business association.

In Ciudad Juarez, about 5,000 homes were destroyed or damaged, while scores of schools, businesses and public places were similarly affected. In the rural Juarez Valley south of the city, more than 1,500 acres suffered crop damage, according to Mexican press reports. Gonzalo Bravo, spokesman for the binational, Ciudad Juarez-based Border Environment Cooperation Commission (BECC) told Frontera NorteSur that about 50 percent of the existing paved roads in Ciudad Juarez were damaged.

At one point or another, more than 10,000 people were forced to flee their homes on both sides of the border. At least 6 people have died in Mexico and the United States from causes attributed to storms since July 6. Ciudad Juarez's poor neighborhoods, or colonias, which are often built in environmentally unsound zones prone to flooding, suffered the worst impact.

"People in the colonias remain afraid, because their homes are on the verge of falling apart," said Felix Perez, the Ciudad Juarez representative of the Rio Bravo Environmentalist Alliance. "There was damage in the whole city, but most of it was in the colonias," Perez said, adding that the practice of past municipal administrations
granting land titles in dangerous zones aggravated the risks to many people.

Up against a potential catastrophe, Mexican authorities evacuated hundreds of residents to several shelters located in safer sections of the city, and announced that hundreds of families will have to be permanently relocated. Liz Flores, the Ciudad Juarez director of the Roman Catholic-affiliated Caritas relief organization, said most of the people facing relocation still don't know where their new homes will be situated. "They don't have answers," she said.

DAMAGE ON THE US SIDE TOO
The Paso del Norte's flood disaster vividly demonstrated how Mother Nature does not respect borders. While storms wrought their greatest fury on the Mexican side of the border, they walloped the US side too. In El Paso County, hundreds of residents were evacuated from the communities of Vinton, Westway, Canutillo, and Socorro.

A scary moment came when a small dam located in Ciudad Juarez about one mile from the US border threatened to break and flood downtown El Paso, prompting city authorities to temporarily evacuate more than 1,500 people from the historic Segundo Barrio and Chihuahuita neighborhoods.

Farm workers gathered in the Border Agricultural Workers Center on El Paso's Oregon Street were trapped by international bridge closures, many unable to return home to their families across the border in Ciudad Juarez. Carlos Marentes, center director, said the low-income seasonal workers faced financial losses by not being able to go out and pick chile in wet fields. The chile pickers are paid on a daily, piece-rate basis.

According to a report in the El Paso Times, more than 1,500 homes, 50 businesses and 100 roads in the west Texas country sustained damage estimated at more than $100 million dollars.

Up Interstate 10 in southern New Mexico's Dona Ana County, residents in low-income subdivisions and colonias were either forced from their homes or trapped inside because to the surging waters. "People were living as if they were on islands inside their mobile homes," said Veronica Carmona, an organizer with the Las Cruces-based Colonias Development Council. "People are going out with shoes in their hand," Carmona said. At the southern edge of Dona Ana County, on the Texas and Chihuahua

In an interview with Frontera NorteSur, Jess Williams, public information officer for Dona Ana County, declined to give a damage estimate for the New Mexico sector of the Paso del Norte. Williams said authorities want to be careful about coming up with an accurate assessment, which is still underway. Confirming some property damage, Williams added that no injuries were reported in his county from the downpours. "We didn't get hit nearly as hard as El Paso County did," Williams insisted. "We were able to respond very quickly."

HOLES IN THE BORDER INFRASTRUCTURE
Striking almost 15 years after negotiators for the North American Free Trade Agreement pledged to rehabilitate the border's underdeveloped infrastructure, the Paso del Norte flooding disaster nevertheless exposed continued, gaping holes in emergency response, storm control, infrastructure, environmental protection, and housing needs.

Built decades ago and showing wear and tear, Ciudad Juarez's flood control system of small dikes and dams was severely tested by rains not seen in the borderlands since the 1950s. A dam at El Paso's Fort Bliss (which is undergoing a major troop expansion) overflowed, flooding homes in a central El Paso neighborhood. Ciudad Juarez's notorious problem of illegal garbage dumping came back to haunt the city as trash washed from hillsides, empty lots and arroyos.

Authorities in both the US and Mexico are busy figuring out how to pay for the recovery costs, which will likely run into the hundreds of millions of dollars. State disaster declarations in Texas and New Mexico will help free up funds to assist local governments in paying for reconstruction, and a federal disaster declaration should provide another source of aid.

In Mexico, however, hundreds of low-income homeowners who don't have flood insurance suffered complete losses. The preliminary cost estimate for new houses, repaved roads, upgraded dikes, storm wastewater systems, and repaired schools and public properties in Ciudad Juarez alone are tagged at more than $400 million dollars-roughly double the city’s annual city budget.

Chihuahua Governor Jose Reyes Baeza and Ciudad Juarez Mayor Hector Murguia Lardizabal have announced that about $35 million dollars in pledges from the three branches of Mexican government and the private sector for reconstruction aid have been made-a proverbial drop in the bucket of the required funding.

"Obviously, what we have to do is look for extraordinary resources," Mayor Murguia said. "It's not a question of 20 or 30 million pesos, but much bigger goals that involve the three levels of government." The Ciudad Juarez mayor said international bridge fares collected by the Mexican federal government should be returned to the city to help pay for the clean-up and rehabilitation work.

Kent Paterson
Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, New Mexico

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# posted by karlos @ 6:03 PM