Rain damage isolates hundreds in Tijuana
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/tijuana/20050223-9...
Neighborhood streets impassable after flooding
By Anna Cearley
February 23, 2005
TIJUANA ? Fernando Michel's snack shop, perched along a rain-soaked canyon, is running low on chips and sodas.
"It's been like this for a month," he said. "I usually go down the hill in a car to stock up, but now I have to walk to bring things up here until
they can cover the road with dirt again."
The rains have carved deep rifts into the neighborhood's dirt road, making it impossible for most cars to get through an area residents call Ca?on del
Centenario.
The canyon, in the southeastern section of the city, is one of many places where migrants settle without proper permits. They build homes out of old
garage doors and fortify the precarious soil with discarded tires.
Farther up the hill, in another unplanned section of the city called Colonia Division del Norte, residents were assessing the damage to their homes.
The saturated earth had collapsed, ripping apart walls and streets.
Despite the force of recent rains, no deaths have been reported that can be blamed on the weather, said Jos? Luis Rosas, who oversees the Tijuana
office of the state's Civil Protection Agency.
As of last evening, state authorities had evacuated 152 homes in four parts of the city.
Of the 52 homes evacuated in Division del Norte, Rosas said, 30 are no longer habitable. Seventy families have been evacuated from Colonia Cumbres del
Rubi, an area that was formed by squatters but where residents now have titles for the land, Rosas said.
The most common problem for residents in outlying parts of the city is simply getting around. In places like Ca?on del Centenario, residents are
temporarily cut off from the rest of the city.
Taking advantage of a few hours of sun yesterday, Candelaria Berm?dez, 37, was hanging her family's freshly washed clothes outside.
"We haven't been able to do this in three days," she said, as her three children played nearby.
The children, like many others in the neighborhood, hadn't gone to school because they couldn't use the road, which had turned into a river.
The rains also prevented some residents from getting to work.
Angela Barrios, 30, asked her husband, a taxi driver, to get her down the road. Because they lived near the bottom of the hill, the trip was possible.
But even their car got stuck a few times and had to be shoved out of the mud by neighbors.
"I have to get work. I wasn't able to get there yesterday because of the rains," said Barrios, who works at a restaurant.
On part of the road, residents were placing steppingstones along the water. Manuel Valenzuela, 55, said the small stream had been 12 feet wide earlier
that day.
"Over here we have to take care of things ourselves," he said, as eight men worked nearby. "Everyone in the community pitches in."
In another section of the road, Alberto Andrade, 45, and several other men were getting rid of jagged rocks that would impede pedestrians and prevent
traffic from getting through.
"The problem is that the stones roll down the hill with the rain and we have to take them out," he said.
About an hour up the road, in the evacuated section of Division del Norte, Marta Alferez, 48, walked through her destroyed home.
"This all started with a small crack in the bedroom, and then it got bigger and bigger until the earth collapsed and the house lurched, and then we
couldn't open the windows or the doors," Alferez said, pointing at a 2-foot-wide fissure.
Rosas, the city official, said the soaked soil created pressure on a water pipeline, causing it to break and to pour even more water into the area.
The pipe can't be repaired until the rains stop, he said.
Yesterday, Alferez and other family members were collecting wooden planks from the crumpled home to construct a storage facility higher up the hill
for the furniture and appliances they had rescued.
She said she had lived in the home for 24 years, surviving many storms. Not only was her home destroyed, but so were those of several family members.
Nearby homes remained at risk, but some residents said they would stay and hope for the best. Maria del Rosario L?pez Quintero, 48, said they have had
to find other sources of water until the pipe can be repaired.
"We are using the rainwater to take showers and wash our clothes," she said.
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