| | | | | | | |
|
|
|
|
Aging Levee System Puts Rio Grande Area At Risk During Hurricanes
437 Views ::
0 Comments ::  :: LOCAL |
Joseph Tucker drove Harlingen’s flooded streets in 1967, when Hurricane Beulah came ashore just north of where the Rio Grande flows into the Gulf of Mexico. An engineer with the U.S. Section of the International Boundary and Water Commission, Tucker remembers fish swimming through murky water covering neighborhood streets.
 Now retired, the 80-year-old also remembers the larger impact the Category 5 hurricane left: 58 people dead and more than $1 billion in damage. "The majority of people, they don't even know they're in danger," he said, while sitting inside his Harlingen mobile home on a recent weekday morning. "We're vulnerable, very vulnerable."
Tucker knows. He spent 31 years managing 270 miles of levees in the Rio Grande Valley to prevent a repeat of Beulah's massive flooding. His agency beefed up the existing decades-old levee system to handle any similar deluge. But through the years, erosion and a lack of maintenance coupled with other factors have placed the earthen levees in peril, and helped Texas officials identify the Valley as the area most vulnerable to hurricanes.
The levees aren't as tall as they once were. In some areas, the weed-covered levees have been flattened to a point where they aren't distinguishable from the surrounding rolling land.
Some levees don't meet the standard 16-foot width at the top, nor are they wide enough for vehicles, such as farm equipment or Border Patrol units, to continue to drive on them. "You get the strength not so much from the height, but the width," said Jo Jo White, manager of the Hidalgo and Cameron Counties Irrigation District No. 9.
The Valley — one of the country's fastest growing regions with about 1.3 million residents on the Texas side — finds itself in danger like never before as the 2007 hurricane season begins today amid dire predictions.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced it anticipates a busy season with up to 17 named storms forming in the Atlantic and as many as five of those strengthening into major hurricanes, packing wind speeds of at least 131 mph.
Bill Proenza, director of the National Hurricane Center, said an unexpected El Niño weather pattern kept hurricanes from making U.S. landfall in 2006. However, this year's Atlantic temperatures are the opposite of El Niño and resemble a La Niña weather pattern that's more favorable to stronger storms.
As a result, the Texas Gulf Coast is twice as likely to be hit with a hurricane this year, according to forecasters at Colorado State University. And there's a 49 percent probability that a hurricane will strike somewhere on the Gulf Coast before the season ends in November, the university study found.
Even the weakest hurricane is capable of inundating towns on the edge of the Valley's coast, such as South Padre Island, Port Isabel and Laguna Vista. A Category 5 hurricane would trigger storm surges of more than 25 feet reaching through Brownsville and flooding communities such as Harlingen, San Benito and Combes.
State emergency management officials said no other area would require as much help to ensure everyone is safely evacuated as the Valley — a largely agricultural region with up to 30 percent of its residents living below the federal poverty level.
"The Valley, we see in Texas, as our potential New Orleans," Michael Harmon, field response administrator for Gov. Rick Perry's Division of Emergency Management, told participants at an annual hurricane conference in Galveston last month.
 State officials' evacuation plan calls for up to 126,000 residents from Cameron, Hidalgo and Willacy counties to be sent to San Antonio in 1,200 buses. The staging area would be Dodge Arena in Hidalgo.
Hospitalized residents or those too frail to make the journey on bus would be flown to El Paso, Amarillo, Lubbock or San Angelo. The U.S. Defense Department would coordinate flights out of McAllen, Harlingen and Brownsville, using C-130 planes.
Jeff Johnston, emergency management coordinator for Brownsville, said cities are setting up neighborhood pickup points for residents who aren't able to evacuate on their own. He said junior high schools are being considered as the pickup points.
These "special needs" residents then would be taken to larger evacuation hubs, at the McAllen Convention Center, San Benito High School and Raymondville High School, according to state officials.
These plans would be put into place up to three days before a Category 4 or 5 hurricane making landfall in the Valley, with visitors on South Padre Island and residents of Cameron County among the first to be ordered to evacuate. "I think we are as prepared as we can be to save lives, but where we're not prepared is to save property," Cameron County Judge Carlos Cascos said.
Tucker said what also makes the Valley unique is that residents have to worry about not only storm surges or wind, but also widespread flooding if the levees are breached. The fear is that once a hurricane makes landfall and dumps rain north and west of the Valley, another flood could smack the region as torrents rush to the gulf. Tucker's not the only one sounding the alarm.
The International Boundary and Water Commission and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have been warning residents for four years that the levees aren't structurally sound enough to contain a 100-year flood, the maximum level of floodwater expected to occur, on average, once every century.
According to a 2003 commission study, which modeled the effect of a flood similar to that of Hurricane Beulah, the U.S. levee would be overtopped along 38 miles along the Rio Grande. Along both sides of the floodway that diverts water away from the river, water would breach the levees for about a mile.
Rick Reyes, the commission's Lower Rio Grande project manager, said the levees were strengthened to handle up to 250,000 cubic feet of water per second in the aftermath of Hurricane Beulah.
Tucker said the amount of water recorded during Beulah was 220,000 cfs, but he said many of the levees today either are not strong enough or tall enough, to contain that much water.
Concerns in the Valley intensified after Hurricane Katrina proved in August 2005 how bad things could get when levees are breached. "Katrina basically opened up everybody's eyes about the particular dangers of when levees fail," said Godfrey Garza Jr., manager of Hidalgo County Drainage District No. 1.
Fearing a similar catastrophe in the Valley, Commissioner Carlos Marin of the U.S. Section of the International Boundary and Water Commission stepped up efforts to repair the levees here, a job estimated to cost at least $125 million.
Congress, however, has not allocated money for repairs, prompting local and regional leaders to join lobbying efforts. Among them is U.S. Rep. Rubén Hinojosa, D-Texas, who has had little success in his repeated requests for additional funding to fix the levees.
What upsets local officials more is the federal government's willingness to pay for the construction of a different type of barrier along the Rio Grande: a border fence to deter illegal immigration.
Cascos said a better idea would be for the federal government to build a "retention wall" high enough to stop flooding along the Rio Grande and stop illegal immigration.
Realizing the need to protect its economy, the Hidalgo County Drainage District No. 1 conducted a $100 million bond referendum in November for drainage improvements. Voters approved it, with its $10 million for levee repairs.
"We can't wait for federal dollars," Garza said, adding the Federal Emergency Management Agency could place the majority of the county in a flood zone due to the levee problems. Such a move would require property owners to purchase flood insurance, he said.
To help avoid that, Garza said the district plans to reallocate $28 million of the $100 million to repair a 12-mile section of the levee between Peñitas and the Anzalduas Dam. Among the areas that would be protected would be the McAllen International Free Trade Zone and the McAllen Miller International Airport. But those repairs won't be completed this year, leaving residents such as Irma Mercado wondering what would be left of their homes.
Mercado lives in a trailer park in a small community of Progreso, about 3 miles from the levees. She said she has no electricity and the ceiling leaks every time it rains. If a hurricane strikes, her plan is to flee to San Antonio to stay with relatives. "I am really worried because if there is a flood, I will lose the little I've got," said Mercado, who sells secondhand clothes near the trailer park.
Tucker already has made plans to evacuate his home in the gated Stuart Place Mobile RV Park, just west of Hidalgo, if a hurricane targets the Valley. He said he fears it won't be until after a disaster occurs that the federal government will address the Valley's needs. "It seems like that's what it takes to get anything done," he said. "Someday, sooner or later, it will happen. "I just hope I never see it."
Jeorge Zarazua Express-News |
|
|
|
|
| Comments | Currently, there are no comments. Be the first to post one!
Click here to post a comment |
|
| | | | | | | |
|
|