SUNDOG - 9-6-2006 at 07:57 AM
Baja towns still without utilities after tropical storm; three dead
By Sandra Dibble
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
September 6, 2006
TIJUANA ? Thousands of residents of Baja California Sur remained without water, electricity or phone service yesterday, two days after Tropical Storm
John drenched the normally arid peninsula.
The Gulf of California fishing community of Mulege, popular with U.S. tourists, was among the hardest hit by flash floods. The rushing water swept
through a trailer park near the Mulege River early Sunday, claiming the life of a U.S. citizen, Peter George Clark, one of three confirmed victims in
the northern part of the state, state government officials said.
The storm felled electric lines and damaged a key aqueduct in the region. The Transpeninsular Highway, the major artery that links communities along
the peninsula, was blocked in several spots by flooded arroyos, according to the Federal Highway Patrol.
?There are rural communities that have been completely cut off,? said Juan Carlos Aguilar, an official with the sprawling, countylike municipality of
Mulege, said in a telephone interview from the town of Santa Rosalia. The town of Mulege, with about 2,500 residents, ?was completely unreachable; we
spent 24 terrible hours without knowing a thing,? Aguilar said.
The U.S. Consulate in Tijuana dispatched personnel to the region to assist U.S. citizens affected by the storm.
The full extent of the damage was unknown yesterday. State officials toured the affected areas, and Gov. Narcisco Agundez is expected to report today
on what he has seen.
?The most important concern is bringing food, drinking water, medicine, medical services to communities that have remained incommunicado,? said Luis
Miguel Castro, a spokesman for the state government, who was reached in the capital, La Paz.
The storm initially was expected to slam into the resort areas at the southern end of the peninsula and then move out to sea. Instead, it climbed up
the spine of the peninsula, drenching communities in Baja California Sur.
The heaviest rainfall in the northern areas came Saturday and Sunday, according to records from Mexico's National Water Commission. The average annual
rainfall in Baja California Sur is about 6? inches, but more than 7 inches were measured in Mulege in one 24-hour period.
Manuel Colima, the commission's chief meteorologist for the peninsula, said it wasn't so much the rainfall that caused damage, but the flash floods
that developed as a result of the runoff from mountainous areas to the ocean.
Some of the most vivid accounts of the devastation have been posted on www.bajanomad.com, an Internet travel forum. ?At 4 a.m. early Sunday morning, people in homes next to the river only had time to put on shoes and
run for their lives,? said one posting from Mulege.
Authorities had warned residents living near the Mulege River to evacuate, but not all took heed, said Sergio Villareal, the top state law enforcement
official in the municipality.
Clark, 70, who had been staying near the river in Jorge's Trailer Park, ?at first did not obey the warning; he decided to stay,? Villareal said.
Clark, a British-born U.S. citizen from Bellevue, Wash., initially was able to escape, but then decided to turn back for his car and was caught up in
the currents.
Another U.S. citizen was more fortunate. Mel Hume, who also was staying in the area, scrambled to safety by climbing a tree, Villareal said.
The two other known fatalities were a woman in Santa Rosalia and a state worker in the community of Loreto.
Aguilar said close to 14,000 people in Santa Rosalia and about 2,500 residents of Mulege remained without water yesterday after an aqueduct ruptured.
Workers from the Federal Electric Commission were fixing transmission lines cut by the storm, and by today expected to bring back power to Mulege,
Aguilar said.
The Mexican military has been playing a key role in assisting victims. Four navy helicopters are delivering food and water to remote communities that
have remained cut off by the storm, said Castro, the state spokesman.
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Sandra Dibble: (619) 293-1716; sandra.dibble@uniontrib.com
NAVY HELICOPTERS ??
FARASHA - 9-6-2006 at 08:11 AM
Has anyone in MULEGE seen them on ground????
As far as I have been told from a Mulege resident- there was NON of them touching down, just flying OVER. So much for that!!