Willacy monitors rising waters

Rising water is being carefully monitored in the north floodway and Arroyo Colorado, but Willacy County officials say they are confident in federal assurances that levees will hold the record high floodwater that is draining to the Laguna Madre from the mountains of Mexico.

However, officials in Willacy County are cautioning people who live near the floodway to be prepared for a possible evacuation in the worst-case scenario.

Willacy County Emergency Management Coordinator Frank Torres said Friday that Texas Department of Public Safety troopers are monitoring the Expressway 77 bridge over the north floodway near Sebastian on a 24-hour basis and state officials assured him it will not need to be closed.

But county officials are keenly aware that all other north-south highways are closed due to flooding, he said.

Andrew Martinez of North Alamo Water Supply Corp., who was checking levees on the north floodway Friday, said he is worried about the additional floodwater.

“This thing’s rising every day,” he said. “If it rains, like it’s supposed to next week, I don’t know …”

Torres said rural residents who live near the floodway need to stay on the alert and could need to be evacuated quickly, if the situation changes.

County officials have sandbags ready and are keeping their fingers crossed, Torres said.

“As long as the water stays in the levees, we won’t have to move a single person,” Torres said. “The problem is going to be if water comes out of the levees.

“The IBWC and the Army Corps of Engineers are responsible for maintaining those levees,” Torres said. “They have taken core samples and they have also done a complete drive of the entire levee system and they’re telling us that the levees are doing OK. They’re driving it 24 hours a day, looking for any issues that may arise.”

IBWC spokeswoman Sally Spener said the Expressway 77 bridge over the north floodway is 9 feet above the water and that it can handle a 100-year flood with a 3-foot safety margin.

Torres said water released from Falcon Dam on Thursday won’t reach Willacy County until late Saturday.

“Everybody who lives along the levee should be ready to evacuate immediately,” Torres said. “Don’t wait to pack until we call you. Anyone who lives near the levee should already have packed all their important documents and all their family heirlooms in the car already so they can leave immediately if we issue a warning,” he said.

Torres also said motorists will be ticketed by DPS troopers if they stop on the expressway bridge over the floodway.

“We also don’t want anybody swimming in the floodway,” Torres said, warning of dangerous conditions in the fast-moving water.

Eighteen-wheel tractor-trailer rigs with “low boy” trailers were seen moving equipment along the levee near Santa Monica, but it is just a precautionary move, Torres said.

The county, irrigation and drainage districts and other agencies are pre-positioning heavy equipment in the area along the floodway to ensure they can quickly deal with any failure of the levee system, Torres said.

“We can’t haul bulldozers and front-end loaders in here from Houston on a moment’s notice,” he said.

Sheriff Larry Spence said his deputies also continue to monitor the levees between law enforcement calls.

The county is taking the flooding situation very seriously, Spence said.
 “We checked in the Santa Monica area about 5:30 to 6 a.m. today,” he said Friday. “People are going to have to continue monitoring water rising in the floodway. We might have to alert everybody to get out in the Sebastian to Santa Rosa area if it gets higher,” Spence said of flood water. “Some residents are concerned about the levees.”

But Spence said some news media are overstating the situation.

“We’re concerned about media trying to scare everybody,” he said. “We’re just monitoring the situation. … But it’s rising now.”

Emma Garcia, whose home is near the floodway south of Santa Monica, said she and her sister have lived in the area their whole lives.

“This whole area was flooded during Hurricane Dolly,” she said.

“All this yard and all of the neighbors’ were flooded, but it didn’t go into the houses,” she said.

But during Hurricane Beulah in 1967, when she was younger, water did come into houses in her neighborhood, Garcia said.

There has been no maintenance of the levees for many years and the water is above the level of her home, which makes her very nervous, Garcia said.

In the latest advisory from the IBWC, the agency said flood water being released from Amistad and Falcon Dams is at record levels.

“The water level at Falcon Reservoir, located at Falcon Heights, Texas-Nueva Ciudad Guerrero, Tamaulipas, reached its highest level ever early on the morning of July 15,” the agency said.

“According to data from the United States Section of the International Boundary and Water Commission, at approximately 2 a.m. CDT, the reservoir elevation surpassed 308.1 feet above mean sea level, the record established on October 19, 1958, just five years after the dam was constructed.

“The reservoir is still rising as floodwaters continue to enter from the Rio Grande and Salado River, a Mexican tributary.

“Releases from Falcon Dam downstream into the Rio Grande remain at 60,000 cubic feet per second. Residents in the Rio Grande Basin should continue to monitor National Weather Service warnings and forecasts for updated information and river forecasts concerning flood information.

“USIBWC flood operations continue in the Lower Rio Grande Flood Control Project and at Amistad Dam, in accordance with previous public statements available online at: www.ibwc.gov/home.”