Del Rio Grande 0818

AUGUST 2018

CHARLEY’S WRATH Flood of 1998 worst in city’s history

AFTER THE DELUGE Museum preserves flood artifacts

FLOOD STORIES

Responders and survivors share their memories

AUGUST 2018

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FROM THE EDITOR

After the Flood PUBLISHER Sandra Castillo EDITOR Karen Gleason CREATIVE DIRECTOR Megan Tackett WRITERS AND PHOTOGRAPHERS Brian Argabright James Boyd Rubén Cantú Karen Gleason David Harrison Larry Pope Megan Tackett ADVERTISING Kim Dupill Ashley Lopez Albert Treviño PRODUCTION Jorge Alarcon Roland Cardenas Antonio Morales EDITORIAL karen.gleason@delrionewsherald.com 830-775-1551, Ext. 247 ADVERTISING ashley.lopez@delrionewsherald.com 830-775-1551, Ext. 250 STORY IDEAS karen.gleason@delrionewsherald.com

2205 North Bedell Avenue • Del Rio, TX 78840 delrionewsherald.com Del Rio Grande is published by the Del Rio News-Herald.

No portion may be reproduced in whole or in part by any means, including electronic retrieval systems, without written permission of the publisher. Editorial content does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the publisher of this magazine.

Editorial and advertising does not constitute advice but is considered informative.

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I didn’t even know there had been a devastating flood in Del Rio on that August day in 1998 until it was all over.

At the time, my husband Michael G. and I both worked at Laughlin Air Force Base, he as a contract maintainer, me in the base’s audiovisual lab as a graphic artist.

The first we heard of the flood was early on Aug. 24, when Mike’s supervisor called and told him not to come to work. The supervisor told him, ‘You can’t get out here; there’s water over the highway between here and town.’

My work supervisor was the next to call and confirmed: Stay home, there’d been a significant flood, and there was still water over the highway.

We got dressed, and the three of us - Mike, our son Tim and me - piled into Mike’s truck and headed toward the base.

Our first shock came when we crossed the Highway 90 Bridge over the San Felipe Creek. There was some work being done on the road there, and a large work truck and several concrete highway dividers had been pushed off the roadway and onto the south shoulder. The height of the debris line showed that the creek had rushed over the bridge.

From there it only got worse, especially when we tried to enter San Felipe and were turned away. I think we knew then that the flood had been worse than anything we had ever seen before or could possibly imagine.

The three of us – Team Gleason – also realized, in a very visceral way, that everything that was really important to us was right there in the cab of Mike’s truck.

Later in the day, my boss called and said that Texas Gov. George Bush would be flying to Del Rio on the following day, and his staff had asked for detailed photos of the damage zones. There was no wet processing to be found in Del Rio at the time, and the base photo lab had three cameras using digital technology.

My boss, the AV lab’s chief photographer and I were assigned to different teams of law enforcement and first responders and sent into the flood zone.

I was assigned to a team with Larry Pope, who at the time worked for the Val Verde County Sheriff’s Office. We toured the Brown Plaza area and what was left of the Del Rio Mobile Home Village on the north side.

Many of the photos you will see in this edition are photos Larry took on that trip, most of them never published before.

I also want to thank my friend David Harrison from the Del Rio Fire Department, who shared his photos of the flood with me, as well as the individuals and families who sat down with us to relive one of the worst nights of their lives and allowed us to tell those stories.

Finally, we at Grande want to dedicate this issue to the men and women who lost their lives in the flood and to the first responders who, as always, answered the call in the hour of need.

In memoriam,

Karen Gleason Grande Editor

Mon. - Closed Tues. - Sat. - 10 AM to 6 PM Sun. - 1 PM to 5 PM

1308 S. Main St. • 830-774-7568

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CONTENTS 22

41

CALENDAR

FLOOD STORIES

FIRST RESPONDERS

Keep busy this month at these local events.

Jovita Casarez

Constable Pct. 3 Steve Berg.

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CHARLEY’S WRATH A closer look at the weather event that changed the face of Del Rio.

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THE DAY IT RAINED FOREVER

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FLOOD STORIES Otila Gonzalez

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FLOOD STORIES Gerald Prather

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The Flood of 1998 killed nine Del Rioans and devastated the city’s oldest neighborhood.

CALDERONS’ CATASTROPHE

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The Calderon family overcomes disaster.

FLOOD STORIES

FIRST RESPONDERS

Nora Padilla

DRFD Fire Chief Joe Harrington and Deputy Chief David Harrison tell their stories of the flood.

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FLOOD STORIES Martina and Jorge Alarcon

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FIRST RESPONDERS

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FIRST RESPONDERS Former Sheriff A. D’Wayne Jernigan

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PRESERVING MEMORIES OF THE FLOOD Whitehead Museum curates photos, video and artifacts from the disaster.

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WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE: A look at the FEMA property today.

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LAST LOOK Our creative director wraps up the August issue.

DRPD Police Chief Fred Knoll Jr. tells his story of the flood.

On the cover: Del Rioan Alma Rojas was 15 years old in August of 1998, when a flood of the San Felipe Creek devastated the San Felipe neighborhood in south Del Rio. Here, she holds a photo taken the day after the flood of a home in the 200 block of Bridge Street.

Rojas’ grandfather rode out the flood on a dining room table inside the Guillen Street home the family still owns. This photo was shot on property the city obtained as part of a FEMA buyout of homes damaged or destroyed in the flood. • Photo by Karen Gleason.

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AUGUST CALENDAR

Keep busy this month at these fun local events

4 MARKET AT THE MUSEUM 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Whitehead Memorial Museum 1308 S. Main St. Support local vendors and small businesses at the Main Street Program’s Saturday evening market. Music, food, crafts, cookies and coffee available.

4 POP-UP BEER GARDEN 7 p.m. to midnight Del Rio Community Garden 210 Jones St. The beer garden is back, just in time for those hot summer nights. Join the Del Rio Parks Foundation for a festive evening of live music, local food and delicious craft beer.

18 GRILL AND CHILL CAR AND TRUCK SHOW Noon to 7 p.m.

San Felipe Lions Park Near Bridge Street and Barrera Street Check out hot rods and classic cars while enjoying freshgrilled foods at this annual show. Portion of the proceeds will sponsor school supplies for children in need.

26 4-H KICK OFF 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Rotary Park Join Val Verde 4-H to kick-off the 2018-2019 4-H year. Kids will enjoy games, food and lots of fun as they learn about all the opportunities 4-H has to offer.

31 MOVIE AT THE MUSEUM 8:45 p.m. to 10:45 p.m.

Whitehead Memorial Museum 1308 S. Main St. Catch a flick under the stars with family, friends and the museum staff. Movie starts at sundown.

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This radar image from the National Weather Service archive shows Charley over Del Rio and the surrounding area the night of Aug. 23, 1998.

Charley’s Wrath A closer look at the tropical storm that devastated Del Rio Story and photo by MEGAN TACKETT

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“Charley’s primary legacy will be the rainfall and associated flooding it produced in the Del Rio vicinity.”

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wind-wise,” Schreiber said. “Where the damage came was ropical Storm Charley traveled hundreds of miles after associated with the fact that it stalled over the region for so long.” making landfall to unleash its worst devastation in Del Charley brought 16.83 inches of rain to the Del Rio area in Rio. The system unloaded a historically unprecedented three hours, according to Rappaport’s report, crushing the amount of rainfall before vanishing into thin air. previous daily record of 8.79 inches in one day set on June 13, Charley dropped a year’s worth of precipitation on Aug. 23, 1935.

1998 in Del Rio when it stalled over the region for 24 hours, “Del Rio area is only equipped to handle about that much rain leading to nine deaths and the displacement of hundreds more. in an entire year,” Schreiber said.

The storm developed somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean before Comparatively, rainfall totals along the Texas coast during charging half-way across Texas, saving its worst for Del Rio. Charley’s tenure accumulated only five inches except for an National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) unofficial report of nine inches in Brazoria County, Rappaport meteorologists describe 1998 as a “mean” year for hurricanes, the wrote. second deadliest The storm hurricane season made landfall as on record. Charley a tropical storm made landfall in on August 22 in Port Aransas two Port Aransas with months before winds measured at Hurricane Mitch, 40 mph, according which killed to Rappaport’s more than 11,000 report.

As it people during travelled across its international south Texas, wake, according to Charley lost NOAA’s website. strength and was Edward N. downgraded to a Rappaport of the tropical depression National Hurricane in McCullen Canter, wrote of County, he wrote.

Charley in October Charley persevered 1998, “The origin This satellite image from NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center shows then-Tropical Depression of Tropical Storm Charley hovering over southwest Texas and Hurricane Bonnie in the Atlantic Ocean on Aug. 24, until reaching his final resting place in Charley is unclear. 1998.

Del Rio, where the It could have been a storm unloaded its fury. large swirl of clouds that exited the coast of Africa on 9 August “Charley’s primary legacy will be the rainfall and associated at rather high latitude, mainly to the north of Dakar, Senegal. flooding it produced in the Del Rio vicinity,” Rappaport wrote.

More definitively, the precursor consisted of a small area of deep The damage caused due to flooding from the rainfall was convection first noted a few hundred miles to the northeast of comparable to an F-5 tornado, Schreiber said. the Leeward Islands on Aug. 15.”

While Del Rio is always at susceptible to heavy rainfall due Local meteorologist Dan Schreiber said Charley’s wind speeds to the area’s geographic makeup, Schreiber said only a small were not significant by the time is rolled into Del Rio. It was potential exists for the intensity of tropical weather to reach the the storm’s rainfall and length of stay that caused the ensuing city each year. Charley’s devastation was unprecedented in Del devastation, he said.

Rio and its citizens can only hope to never experience it again. • “Similar to Hurricane Harvey, the storm was not very strong

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Vehicles turned into boats by the flood came to rest in ungainly positions all over south Del Rio. Here, the Tardy Dam stopped the downstream progress of one car, while a van rests off to one side of the structure. Deep silt and mud were also deposited by the flood and took weeks to remove.

The day it rained forever The Flood of 1998 was the worst in the city’s history Story by KAREN GLEASON; photos by LARRY POPE and KAREN GLEASON

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ited as it is on the very eastern edge of the Chihuahuan Desert, you might think that having too much water would never be a problem in Val Verde County, and in most years, you’d be right.

But on a few occasions during the past century, the weather and the county’s unique geography have combined to create killer flood events.

In fact, a drought gripped Val Verde

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County and other areas of west Texas during the first half of 1998.

Ministers in local churches routinely prayed for rain, though no one wanted or expected rain of the kind that fell in and around Del Rio on Aug. 23 and Aug. 24 of that year.

In his book “Flash Floods in Texas,” Jonathan Burnett details a century’s worth of the Lone Star State’s deadliest flood

events, from the Austin Dam break in 1900 to the flooding of the Guadalupe River in 2002. An appendix gives an overview of further significant flood events in Texas, from a flood of the San Antonio River in 1819 to flooding of the Rio Grande at El Paso in the summer of 2006.

An entire chapter of Burnett’s book is dedicated to the Del Rio floods of August 1998.

Burnett described Charley’s handiwork as follows: “This is the story of what happens when intense precipitation falls directly on a small basin and then flows through a populated area.”

“This worst-case scenario came to pass at Del Rio’s San Felipe Creek, one of the most beautiful and lifegiving streams in the Lone Star State. One of the richest creekside communities was decimated by an old friend when a year’s worth of rain fell in one evening. This is one of the saddest weather-related tragedies in recent Texas weather history,” Burnett wrote.

The author quoted National Weather Service forecasters who said that “dying tropical storms and core rains are ‘one of our nightmare scenarios.’”

Most of the time, the San Felipe Creek is a benign stream, a crystal-clear ribbon of water that flows over a limestone bed through the center of Del Rio. The creek is fed by the San Felipe Springs, a series of artesian springs in the northeast quadrant of the city above the golf course.

In many places, the San Felipe Creek is shallow enough to cross without getting your knees wet, and the creek nurtured the growth of El Barrio de San Felipe, the oldest neighborhood in Del Rio, settled along its banks by the farmers who watered the land with its flow and the workers and their families who found employment on those farms.

Floods of the creek are no new phenomenon.

Del Rio historian Doug Braudaway, in an article that appeared in a commemorative flood edition of the Del Rio News-Herald on Nov. 9, 1998, reported, “Prior to Aug. 23, 1998, the worst flood in Del Rio’s history tore through the town on the night of June 13, 1935. The neighborhood along the San Felipe Creek suffered the brunt of the floodwaters, but much of the town found itself under a couple of feet of rain and runoff.”

Damage to Del Rio was extensive, Braudaway wrote, quoting a portion of a harrowing rescue attempt in the San Felipe area, published in the Del Rio Evening News: “An unidentified woman slipped from the clutches of Tomas Cuellar and Francisco Lomas, members of a rescuing party. The men, standing in water five feet deep, had grasped the woman by the wrist, when a large wave collapsed the porch on which they stood. The woman’s screams as she was swept away could be heard for several minutes over the angry roar of the waters.

“Her body was found several days later almost completely buried in mud and gravel. Only her hand protruded from the ground. The rescuers felt great apprehension as they moved into a south San Felipe neighborhood called the Devil’s Corner, or ‘Rincon del Diablo.’ It was thought that the warnings might not have made it to that area.

“Even with the warnings, the severity of the damage could not be escaped. Water flowed through Brown Plaza knee-deep; cars were swept away; household items floated in the water; more debris was hanging

A scene of devastation greeted rescuers and area homeowners who returned to the Brown Plaza area. Overnight, the pleasant little plaza with its iconic pink and red bandstand, surrounded by small businesses and offices, was turned into a scene resembling a war zone. The two-story building pictured here, which stood at the corner of Canal and Cisneros streets, was eventually demolished.

The small suspension bridge over the popular “Blue Hole” swimming hole lies toppled by the force of the water that rushed through the area during the flood. The water bent the steel I-beams holding the bridge in place. Debris on the railings of the Highway 90 Bridge in the background shows that at its height, the creek flowed over the bridge railings.

Little but rubble, debris and a handful of heavily damaged homes was all that remained of a once thriving neighborhood along Elm Street, seen in this photo taken from the Canal Street Bridge the day after the flood. The entire area pictured is now part of the Del Rio Rotary Park.

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Built to last, the iconic bandstand at the center of Brown Plaza weathered the flood, only sustaining damage to its railings. This photo is a view of the plaza from its Cantu Street entrance looking north toward the Canal Street Bridge.

Del Rio’s north side wasn’t spared the ravages of the flood of 1998. About five to six feet of water rushed down the normally dry Cienegas Creek drainage on the city’s north side, blasting through this garage on Margaret Lane and damaging large sections of pavement.

Larry Pope, at the time a lieutenant with the Val Verde County Sheriff’s Office, takes photos of the flood’s devastation in the Brown Plaza area. Pope was one of several local law enforcement officers assigned to accompany Laughlin Air Force Base civilian photographers into the flood zone to document the damage in advance of a visit to the area by Texas Gov. George Bush.

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high in the trees. Twelve-foot-square pieces of pavement were picked up and knocked aside. Water flowed down Main Street, and as much as three feet of water stood in stores downtown,” the story recounted.

Four persons died in the 1935 flood, with more than 50 homes destroyed.

The area experienced another round of severe flooding in 1954, though the Pecos River watershed just west of Del Rio was the hardest hit, according to Burnett.

Though other areas in the Val Verde County were more affected by those rains, Burnett wrote, “Fueled by the 20-inch-plus rains from the Pecos and Devils rivers, the Rio Grande below Langtry and Comstock surged to record levels. At Del Rio, the river peaked at 1,140,000 cfs (cubic feet per second) at 9:30 a.m. on June 28 (1954), sweeping away the approach to the International Bridge at Del Rio ‘like kindling wood’.”

Farther downstream, the water flowing down the Rio Grande confounded predictions and shattered previous records. Burnett wrote, “The Weather Service at Brownsville said there is nothing to compare with this flood – and the only comparison forecasters could make would be with legends about a great flood in 1835.”

The flood of 1998, though, is now considered the worst flood in Del Rio’s history, both because of the loss of life and the amount of property destroyed.

Two Del Rioans, JoAnn Schumann McCarley and her son-in-law, a Border Patrol trainee named David Pyatte, lost their lives in flooding of the normally-dry Cienegas Creek drainage on the city’s north side.

The death toll for those caught in the waters of the San Felipe Creek in south Del Rio officially stands at seven, but many of those who lived through the flood, including Jovita Casarez, whose story is told later in the magazine, are convinced the actual loss of life in the 1998 flood was much higher.

A narrative of the flood written by Jack Howley is part of the flood memorabilia on display at the Whitehead Memorial Museum.

“From the air, the path of destruction looked similar to that of a tornado,” Howley wrote. “However, on the ground, the waters’ wrath was painfully obvious. Nine people lost their lives, and over 600 homes were demolished or sustained major damage.

Over 173 businesses were destroyed.”

One of the most poignant losses the flood inflicted, apart, of course, from the human

Somehow, this kitten survived the devastating flood of the San Felipe Creek and here peers out from a heavily damaged store front along Andrade Street in this photo taken Aug. 25, 1998, looking west toward the San Felipe Creek. In the background, utility company work crews labor to restore power to the area.

lives that could never be replaced, was the destruction of the community of San Felipe that had grown up along the banks of the creek.

Elm Street, once an area of small houses between the Brown Plaza and the San Felipe Creek, was abandoned. Homeowners were bought out with FEMA money the city received after the disaster, and the buildings razed. Elm Street is now part of the Del Rio Rotary Park.

Likewise, houses built on the very edge of the creek itself were also bought out and demolished and the area left as a green zone, a buffer along the creek bank.

Eloy Padilla is an attorney who currently works as the administrative assistant to Val Verde County Judge Efrain Valdez. Padilla lived in the San Felipe neighborhood as a child and is a passionate advocate for “El Barrio de San Felipe” and one of its most knowledgeable historians.

“The 1998 flood destroyed the community of San Felipe. The barrio of San Felipe

is really no more. It was never the same afterward, and I think it will never be the same,” Padilla said.

He remembers the barrio as a vibrant, living place.

“There was always something going on. It was very vibrant, very exciting. I remember as a five- or six-year-old living at the corner of Cantu and Garza streets, at 305 Garza. We used to walk two or three blocks up to the Catholic church, and there were one, two, three grocery stores, a gasoline and grocery store, the Mendez Grocery and Pilar Garza’s store, and that was before you even got to the church,” he said.

“After the church was the bakery, another gas station, a pharmacy, another grocery store, before you got to Brodbent.

Everywhere you went there were people walking, riding their bikes, kids running around. It was alive. Now there’s nothing, no businesses, no children. There’s no neighborhood,” he said.

The neighborhood’s end, he said, came

when the flood irreparably damaged or simply washed away more than 100 homes.

Padilla remembers the years between 1962 and 1966 as the neighborhood’s golden years.

“Everywhere you went there were kids on bicycles. There were baseball games being played on every other block. People were sitting outside and visiting with neighbors.

But it’s died, and we can’t bring it back to life,” he said.

After the flood, many of the displaced families left the San Felipe neighborhood and moved into FEMA trailers or dispersed to other areas of the city.

“They never came back, and few if any are moving back to the barrio. Few if any are opening up businesses here,” Padilla said.

The damage done by the flood was then compounded by attrition. As older residents pass on, their heirs don’t move back into the old neighborhood, preferring to live their lives elsewhere. •

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"We see Parvo in dogs quite frequently. The virus is prevalent in Val Verde and Maverick Counties." says Dr. Whitten. "If a dog is not vaccinated against the disease, the chances are high the pup will contract the virus.

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Stories of the Flood The flood of 1998 changed Del Rio forever.

Here, some of the survivors share their stories of the city’s most harrowing night.

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Without a home: Nora Padilla lost almost everything in the flood Story and photo by KAREN GLEASON

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ora Padilla stands in the shade of tall pecan trees in Del Rio Rotary Park along the San Felipe Creek and gestures at the park’s interior with a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

“The barbecue pit, the picnic shelter, that’s where my home was. It was 106 Elm St.,” Padilla said.

Padilla spoke about her experiences before, during and after the disaster.

“I was born and raised in this neighborhood. My mother bought 201 Andrade St. . . . She planted a lot of the pecan trees that are here, and then she purchased some more property. She purchased 106 Elm, and she purchased property around Barron Street,” Padilla said.

“The best time of my youth was spent here,” she said.

Padilla said she has many “best memories” of growing up along the creek.

“Swimming at the morita, because that was a rite of passage. . . Where the basketball goals are, right there by the creek there was a big mora tree, and everybody knew that was the area for beginners. It was not deep, and it had a little current where you could come in or out of either side. I learned to 18

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swim at the morita, and my children learned to swim at the morita. That’s one of my best memories,” she said.

“Other memories, playing football on Cisneros Street with all the boys and girls in the neighborhood. We would play flag football and go fishing in the creek. We were water babies, always in or near the water,” Padilla said.

She also recalled the abiding sense of community.

“We all knew each other. We had an open door policy. My mother’s house was never closed. At two or three o’clock in the morning, that door was open, and we never worried about it. . . My brother had an accident, and she spent a lot of time at the hospital, and the neighbors took care of us. They would wake us up, put us on the bus, make sure the house was clean.

There were ladies that came in and cooked dinner for us, so it was a very close-knit neighborhood,” Padilla said.

She clearly remembers the day and night of the flood.

“My house, we were working on a porch the day of the flood, and we finally got our porch put in, and we sat outside and enjoyed

our porch. . .It rained, and the city came and left the barriers and told us there was going to be a flood. We weren’t worried, because we kept an eye on the creek and we had had floods before.

“In the afternoon it stopped raining, and the city came and removed the barriers and said it was okay to stay,” she recalled.

Padilla said she got ready to go to bed.

“I received a call, maybe at 9 o’clock, from my father, saying the streets in Val Verde Park Estates were running with water, and he said, ‘Where do you think that water is going, if not the San Felipe Creek?’ He told me we needed to vacate. He told me we needed to get out,” she said.

Padilla was married at the time and asked her husband to go outside and check the creek.

“He said okay, and he put his shoes on and started to go outside, and the water was already floating cars on Elm Street. When we left our house, the water was up to my waist,” she said.

Padilla, her husband and her three sons, Rio, an eighth grader; Hector, a fourth grader; and baby Jacob, who was only a year old, began to make their way toward

was a very trying time,” she said.

“Our thought was to get up early and higher ground on Andrade Street.

“In this there is a great loss. It’s like when come back and start cleaning the mud and “We’ve always had emergency backpacks, you bury a loved one, you’ll never recover stuff out. We thought it was just a regular one change of clothes, whatever toy they from it. You know you have to move on, flood,” Padilla said with a wry smile. wanted, but that night when my husband but the loss is always there. The loss of the Her mother and her husband went to came back in, he was really freaked out, community and the close tightness we had their neighborhood first. and it was very dramatic to see the water. with each other’s families. The monetary, “My mother came back and said, ‘There We tried to call out to our neighbors, but they can say, well, they buy you out, they pay is nothing left.’ . . . I saw it from the Plaza there was no way they could hear us with you, but you don’t recover from that, and and I saw there really was nothing left. the thunder and the rain,” she said. you don’t recover the memories. I have no My mother’s house was gone. The whole The Padilla family walked toward Nora’s baby pictures of my children, no memories neighborhood was gone. My house was mother’s house. Her mother was inside, that I can share with my grandchildren, if still standing. I had a tree inside of it, Padilla remembered, and didn’t want to I ever have any, baby teeth, the first curl, but everything else was gone. It was like leave. baby clothes, school pictures. Those are a bulldozer had come and just scraped “She said, ‘The water’s flowing, but things that money cannot give you back,” everything, everything. I was just in shock,” it’s going to pass.’ Before that, I told my Padilla said.

Padilla said, staring off into the distance, husband to carry the baby and put my other One of the deepest losses was a notebook tears gathering in her eyes. son on his shoulders. So he carried my two Padilla kept in which she had written “My thought was, ‘Don’t worry, we’re children, and I told him to wait for me at down herb-lore passed down to her by her going to rebuild,’ but you could not rebuild the Cantina de la Piedra,” Padilla said. grandmother.

Her mother still “All of that was refused to leave, lost,” she said, telling Padilla the shaking her head. water was too cold “It was a very hard to wade through and time to move on, but I reminding her that had my children, and they had gone through they have been my many floods before and anchor to progress, repeatedly expressing and I have my her certainty the water mother,” Padilla said, would soon recede. then falls silent for Padilla said her long seconds. third son had the Despite what it took family’s three pit bulls away, Padilla said she on one chain, and she stills loves the creek. instructed the boy to “I love my creek. hold onto the dogs and I love my barrio. It’s not let go.

“I was watching him Nora Padilla’s home at 106 Elm St. once stood in this area of Del Rio Rotary Park, now a picnic very emotional, the shelter for park visitors. The pecan tree at the left of the photo was planted by Padilla’s mother when close ties and unity going with the dogs, she bought the property. that we had here, that still trying to tell my is the real loss. We grew up knowing our because of the specifications of making this mother, ‘Let’s go,’ and she was trying to get neighbors, loving our neighbors, sharing a flood zone. People couldn’t come back her purse to leave, and something in the their joys and their sorrows. . .We were and rebuild,” she said. “We were a poor water hit him and he just went under. All I very, very close as a community, and when community. We couldn’t have rebuilt even could see was the dogs, but he never let go we were displaced, the elders still kept up if we had wanted to.” of the dogs, and they got him out . . . Those with each other, but a lot of them are gone Padilla found some personal items. three dogs saved his life,” Padilla said. now, and the children, the next generation, “But everything was contaminated.

Padilla said she was still trying to is still in mourning for the great loss they We had the San Felipe Clinic, where they convince her mother, when an enormous, had, but they have to realize the barrio had the TB testing, all this area was full heavy flower pot outside her mother’s needs them. They need to come back and of syringes that had floated down, so you house began floating, she was convinced. love San Felipe and take care of it, the way didn’t want to keep anything because you Padilla and her family eventually made our elders taught us, making sure there is were afraid you might catch something,” it to higher ground, walking toward Garza no trash, to look in on our elders, who don’t she said.

Street. have anybody,” Padilla said.

Padilla said she is grateful that she and “I ended up staying at my father-in-law’s “That’s why it’s important for me to her family survived, but despite that relief, on Gillis Avenue that night. You could hear get involved with the Casa, the creek there was also an enduring sadness. people screaming for help. It was a very cleanups,” she said. • “We were homeless . . .I stayed with difficult night,” Padilla said. friends and then I stayed with family. . .It And there were other shocks to come.

GRANDE / AUGUST 2018

19

Father’s strong building saves lives of family, neighbors Story and photos by KAREN GLEASON

M

artina and Jorge Luis Alarcon and their children were a young family in that long, hot summer of 1998.

Four years prior, they had moved into a house on Perez Street in the heart of an area of the Sal Felipe Neighborhood known as “El Rincon del Diablo,” the Devil’s Corner. It had never occurred to them to consider the area’s ominous nickname.

Martina Alarcon said she and her husband decided to buy the house on Perez Street because they wanted to live close to Jorge Luis’ mother, who lived nearby with her daughter, Jorge’s sister.

“It happened that house became available, and they lived right across the street from us,” Martina said. “Our backyard faced their front yard.”

Martina said she was happy she and her husband were able to get the house, calling it “economical.”

“It was small, but it was habitable, so they were willing to work on it. It was just the two of them and the two of us when we moved in,” her daughter Maria Alarcon recalled.

She was three or four and Jorge

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Alberto was five or six.

“I don’t have a lot of memories of that time, because I was small, but I remember us going down to the creek to play, and it wasn’t a busy area, so we could also play in the street,” Maria recalled.

All of them clearly recall the day before and the night of the flood.

“On Sunday afternoon or evening, Aug. 23, 1998, there were city officials that went knocking on doors and kind of warning people that we were expecting a lot of rain. It was only a warning, so my parents didn’t take it as ‘you have to leave.’ It started raining in the evening again, after raining most of the day. It continued to rain and rain, but they didn’t really think much of it. They really weren’t worried,” Maria said.

“It was around dusk when they noticed the water start coming in the house,” Jorge Alberto said.

“When they decided they needed to get out, the water was already up to the floorboards of the cars parked in the street, and the street looked like a river,” he added.

“When the water began rising, they

decided we’ve got to get out of here, but it was already too late,” Maria recalled.

The daughter said she remembers her parents waking her up, “Get up; grab a thing or two. We’re getting out, but by the time we were ready to head out, my mom said, ‘No, we’re not leaving anymore because we just can’t.’”

Martina said initially she wasn’t afraid.

“She was scared because the water was rising, but she had trust in how her husband had made the house, because they had built more on it than when they had first gotten there, and she trusted that it was well-made,” Maria said.

“About two years after they purchased the home, they started making renovations to it, and expanding it into a second story. The bottom part of the house was made out of adobe, but when they built a second floor, my dad made some cement pillars around the first floor,” she added.

When the Alarcons realized they couldn’t leave the area, Martina told her children to go upstairs.

“They didn’t know how long we were going to be up there. It was the

over the neighborhood that morning.

“It was my aunt, my uncle and three bedrooms and a bathroom that were Tears spring into Martina’s eyes as she cousins, all boys, that lived there with upstairs. I remember clearly looking out remembers her first look at the devastated my grandmother, later they told us they the windows and trying to see what was landscape outside her front door. threw my grandmother on the top bunk going on. It was very dark, but there was “When the flood happened, we had of a bunk bed, and everybody held onto so much lightning, that you could see already finished paying for the house, the bed, so the water was almost to their in the flashes. It was nothing but water finished paying for the cars, and she necks inside the house,” Maria said. everywhere. There was nothing to see but thanked God we had what we had. She Martina said the night of the flood was water. You could see some things floating said she was happy that we had paid all one of the longest of her life. off in the water,” Maria said. that stuff off before the flood happened “My mother was very optimistic, she Sometime after the family had taken and she was like, ‘Oh, no more expenses, kept saying someone will come to save refuge upstairs, they heard a desperate and then the flood happened.’ At first she us, they’ll send a boat. They’ll send a knocking on their front door. just couldn’t believe what had happened. helicopter, but they will get us out,” Maria At the time they heard the knocking, She said you don’t realize what you have said, shaking her head and laughing at the water level in the house was up to until you see what you’ve lost. We only the memory.

Martina’s knees and the house was still had what we were wearing,” Maria said.

The next day, in the rising dawn, the filling with water.

While everything on the second floor Alarcons and their neighbors ventured “When they went downstairs to see of the house who it was, they saw survived the raging it was people from waters of the the neighborhood flood, everything who wanted to save on the first floor themselves in our and outside was home, to go up to the washed away or second story. There destroyed. Martina were five families, also recalled that about 24 people, some of the items including us,” Maria they were able to said. salvage were stolen “It was people of in the days after all ages, old people, the flood. children, babies, The city bought a dog, and they all the Alarcons’ went upstairs,” she property, using said. “We had three money provided bedrooms and a The open field in the Rincon del Diablo area of San Felipe in south Del Rio was the site of Martina bathroom on the and Jorge Luis Alarcon’s two-story home in 1998. The Alarcons and their children moved away from by FEMA. The Alarcons moved second floor, so some the creek after the flood of 1998. in with an uncle of people were in one Jorge Luis’ and his boss lent him a small outside. room, some people were in another, so house where the family was able to stay.

“It was around seven in the morning there was space for everyone. Everybody They lived in the cramped quarters for when the water started going down, and was scared, but we were all there together, two months, sleeping on the floor. my mom said she remembers soldiers, I and they stayed the whole night, but “We didn’t have anything we could call guess from the National Guard, coming nobody slept.” our own for those two months,” Martina and looking to help people out of their Martina remembers that in the said. homes. They helped us out of our home lightning flashes, the family and their new She also revealed that she was three along with the 20 other people that were guests kept an uneasy watch on the raging months pregnant when the flood came. in there with us, and at that time they took waters outside their home.

“It took a few years and that after the us to the gym at Our Lady of Guadalupe “My grandmother and my aunt lived flood, when we were little, we didn’t want Church,” Maria said. across the street, and although a lot of to be left alone anywhere, so we had to tag Jorge Luis left the residence before neighbors made it to our house, our along with them everywhere they went, the soldiers came to make his way to relatives were not able to make it, so and whenever it rained, we were like, ‘Oh, his mother’s house, and learned that his Jorge Luis was very worried about them. no, here we go again,’” Maria said. mother and sister and all the members of When we talked to them later, they said The Alarcons finally found a new his sister’s family had survived the night. they didn’t realize the water was high residence in Val Verde Park Estates, to Martina remembers the smells of gas until it was already inside their house,” the east of Del Rio on higher ground. • and raw sewage hung heavy in the air Martina said.

GRANDE / AUGUST 2018

21

A rooftop raft: How a makeshift raft and a pecan tree saved Jovita Casarez Story and photo by KAREN GLEASON

J

ovita Casarez lived at 101 Elm St., almost on the banks of the San Felipe Creek, when the flood of 1998 struck. She had bought the property and lived there for more than three decades.

“I never worried about the creek flooding because all the time I live there, nothing bad is happening. The water would come up, but it never caused any damage to the house,” she recalled.

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She said she will never forget Aug. 23 and 24 of 1998.

The day before it had rained, and the rains began again late that night, she recalled, about 10 or 10:30 p.m.

“The day before everybody was expecting something to happen because the water (of the creek) was coming up, but it was like other times, we thought it would go back,” she said.

Casarez recalled the police coming to check on them during the day, but no one was advised to evacuate the area.

Her home was on a slight rise above the creek She remembered her television began broadcasting a flash flood warning for the city, and the lights began flickering on and off.

Her husband and several other family

members, including a son, Jose, daughterin-law Jessica and several grandchildren, Jose Jr., Juan Miguel and Luis, a total of seven people, lived in the small house.

Her daughter-in-law went outside to check on her car, and saw the water already to the vehicle’s roof.

“She wanted to go out there, and I said, ‘No, no,’ the water was too fast,” Casarez said.

She said she woke up her grandchildren, telling them, “Move, move, move.”

They all moved slowly, she recalled, and she tried to hurry them along.

“I went to the back door and opened it and a whole bunch of water came to the inside of my house. The kids, when they saw the water, they started to panic, and in a situation like that, I am very strong and I tell them, ‘Quiet! Nothing is happening.

Be quiet, don’t cry. Listen to me.’ I said nothing is happening, the police is going to come and help,” she said.

A neighbor, Miguel Hernandez, came through her backyard with two police officers and told them to take her grandchildren. She lifted her first grandson

over the fence. Her daughter-in-law went next. Hernandez and the two officers jumped the fence to help her.

As the water grew deeper, Casarez ordered everyone that remained onto the roof of her house.

Casarez, her husband, a police officer, two of her grandsons and the neighbor climbed out of the water and onto her roof.

“When I climbed on the roof, I could see everything is destroyed, there was coming in the water trucks, trees, furniture,” she said.

Casarez remembers hearing her neighbors crying for help, but all she could do was shout out instructions for them to get onto their own roofs. She, her husband, the neighbor, the police officer and two of her grandsons huddled on the roof.

“I pray, ‘God, please don’t permit these people to lose their lives.’ I said, ‘I am in your hands. If you want to take me, it’s okay, but please help my family.’” She said.

A large tree pushed by the floodwaters slammed into her house, cutting it almost in half.

Improbably – Casarez attributes it to

“praying with her heart” – the roof became a raft, and Casarez, her family members, the neighbor and police officer began floating downstream.

Almost miraculously, the makeshift raft remained stable for nearly a mile as it floated. In a flash of lightning, Casarez said she saw they were approaching a large tree.

When they struck the tree, she said, she knew the raft would sink.

“The last thing I tell everybody is take one branch and hold on,” she said.

She said she lost consciousness and when she awoke, she found herself in the water, one hand gripping a branch of the pecan tree.

“I remember I heard the voice of my grandson, and then I opened my eyes,” she said.

When she came to fully, she saw that everyone on the roof had made it onto the tree. She climbed onto the tree as well, and the small group was rescued sometime after daybreak.

To this day, Casarez believes many more persons lost their lives in the flood than was officially given. •

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23

Walking out barefoot Former Councilwoman Otila Gonzalez recalls harrowing night Story by KAREN GLEASON; photos by KAREN GLEASON and MODESTA GONZALEZ

O

tila Gonzalez still lives in the same south Del Rio home she shared with her sisters on Aug. 23, 1998.

Gonzalez, who is currently the president of the Del Rio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, had retired the year before the flood and was an elected member of the Del Rio City Council.

“The day of the flood, it had been raining so much I thought I was going to have to build an ark. It just wouldn’t let up, and you could really hear the rain coming down on our carport. It just kept coming down, and I thought,

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‘When is it going to stop?’” Gonzalez said.

At the time of the flood, Gonzalez shared the West Chapoy Street house where she lives with her sisters, the oldest, Petra Gonzalez, the middle, Frances Gonzalez; and the one just older than Otila, Modesta Gonzalez.

Today, only Modesta and Otila are left.

Gonzalez and her sisters were at the house on the day of the flood.

She recalls being worried.

“I would go out, drive out, on Taini Street as far as I could go to see how high the creek was, because one time before in our lives, we had to evacuate.

At that time, the water didn’t come all the way into the house, but it reached our back step. There was an evacuation, and we moved out, but the water receded pretty fast and we came back,” Gonzalez recalled.

It was close to midnight when Gonzalez’s sister Frances got up out of bed.

“When she got her feet in her slippers, they were wet. So of course they all come to me right away, woke me up, and said, ‘There’s water on the floor.’ ‘So? Mop it up,’ I told them. I thought, oh gosh, the plumbing. That was my first thought. I refused to

something and putting it on. All I had on was she said. believe there was a flood, so I checked the my shorts and a t-shirt. I was barefooted, “I was the leader, and I didn’t have any bathrooms, and there was water all over, and and we went in there and I found my sisters a shoes on, I didn’t have a purse,” Gonzalez you could hear the hissing sound of the water place to sit,” Gonzalez said. said. coming into the house somewhere.

“I thought, I can’t stay here, I have to go “So we were walking, purses held high. .

“It was dark, so I took my flashlight and see about my Lincoln, so I went back to the . we walked up Flores Street toward Garza, started going down the hallway. As I got to corner, and that’s where all the city workers because Garza is the highest street in the the door, I could see the water coming in were and they were going down there with area, and I didn’t know what we would do through the sides of it, and I thought, ‘Oh, the big machinery, with shoot, it’s here,’ but I the scoop on the front, didn’t know how high it and you could hear people was outside,” she said. yelling, the people who She told her sisters, lived closer to the creek, “We don’t have time you could hear them for anything. Grab your calling for help. . . A friend purses, put on clothes, put of ours floated in her on shoes and let’s get out house on her couch all of here.” night,” she said.

When Gonzalez went Gonzalez said she to open the side door, it realized the extent of wouldn’t open. Then she the disaster when she tried the front door and it returned to her home early wouldn’t open either. the next morning.

“If I known the water The water flowing into would only get to four the house left furniture, feet high in the house, we Only a shell remains of the Rio Verde Cultural Center, sited on historic Brown Plaza, in this appliances and personal could have floated on the photo taken a few days after the flood of 1998. The building was eventually renovated and belongings in jumbled beds, but I didn’t know, rechristened the Casa De La Cultura. piles. Mud and silt borne and my only thought at into the house by the the time was to get them floodwaters covered the out. I opened a window, floor. and we climbed out . . .

Gonzalez and her sisters The other thing I thought stayed with friends and about was, I had a Lincoln family members who lived Town Car and I had an on higher ground, and old truck. I thought, the she recalled friends and truck is higher, so I’ll put family came to help with them all in the bed and the cleanup, which took drive them out of here. months. . . We got probably half With a wry smile, a block, and the truck Gonzalez said, “Apparently stalled, and I thought, ‘Oh, I didn’t learn anything my goodness, if this thing because I still live there, floats, we’re going to go and am terrified every floating down the creek.’

Clothing, furniture and personal belongings lie jumbled in soggy piles inside the home of the time we get a hard rain. .

I told everybody to jump Gonzalez sisters in the 700 block of West Chapoy Street in the city’s San Felipe neighborhood. . It had never flooded that out, hold hands and let’s This is the scene that greeted Otila Gonzalez and her three sisters when they returned to their bad in all the years we had walk to the corner, because home on Aug. 25, 1998, the day after the devastating flood of the San Felipe Creek. Cleanup took more than two months, but the Gonzalez sisters moved back into their home in November. been there, it had never the corner of Chapoy and gotten that high . . . Every Flores is higher. time it rains, I drive over to the creek to see once we got there, but I knew the church was “In the tragedy, there was some comedy, how high the water is getting, and I have there, so just about then, they were starting thinking back on us walking through that everything ready. My sister is ready. I may be to unlock the doors to the gymnasium. dirty water, holding hands, and my sisters more prepared, but it still scares me.”

“We went in there, and the whole floor was with their purses up in the air. They didn’t “In retrospect, after losing so many things, filled with, I guess they were going to have a want to get their purses wet and tippy-toeing, I guess the most important thing is that we’re rummage sale or something, and they told us, trying to get up to high land, and that’s all still here. We came out of it,” she said. • ‘If you’re wet and you can find something to they took, their purses. They got dressed and wear, just take it,’ and I remember grabbing they grabbed their purses and their shoes,”

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25

Bringing Del Rio together Longtime community leader tasked with bringing unity in wake of chaos Story by BRIAN ARGABRIGHT; Photos by BRIAN ARGABRIGHT and JAMES BOYD

G

erald Prather doesn’t view himself as any kind of hero when he looks back at his role in the aftermath of the Flood of 98.

The retired United States Air Force major general spent 32 years helping keep the country safe and leading thousands of men and women in their mission. In the wake of the tragic flood

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that forever changed the course of Del Rio’s history, Prather again was tasked with leading, but this time the mission was much closer to home.

“I married a gal from Del Rio, and she wanted to be closer to her family.

I wasn’t close to mine, so we moved to Del Rio,” Prather said. “I fell in love with the people here. I actually got to

know so many folks when I was going through pilot training here.”

August 22 was like any other day for Prather. His home was out by the lake, and the evening rain was a welcome departure from the standard warmth and dry conditions Del Rioans had come to expect from the late August Texas weather. But as the rain

funds were appropriate. needed to be done, who needed the most continued, Prather sensed things were far Prather said the group began with the help and how to get that immediate help to from normal less than 20 miles from his rescue phase in the immediate aftermath them as quickly as possible. front door. of the flood and “We were then through the listening to the recovery phase. local radio stations When the federal and could hear government’s stories about guys resources arrived going out in their in Del Rio, via the boats, picking up Federal Emergency people off the roofs Management of their homes.

Agency (FEMA), The rain just kept Prather’s group falling … it fell for worked hand-inso long and for so hand with them as hard,” Prather said. well.

The next day “Once FEMA got Prather said he was here, we focused having lunch when on moving people then-city manager into their trailers.

Beth Eby called We knew we had him and asked to people who needed meet about the Debris from the flood of 1998 lines both sides of the San Felipe Creek in this photo taken the day after a place to live, but overwhelming the flood. we couldn’t rebuild response to the their homes,” flood.

Prather said.

“We had Eventually, the 18-wheelers full of donations dwindled clothes, donations and local aid came of food, money, through local all of this coming congregations. in to help with the Prather said that flood relief. We transition was the had a lot of groups beginning of the stepping up to help end of his role with out, but everyone the flood assistance. just kept getting “We did a in everyone’s way. good job on the I was tasked to recovery efforts. provide some kind Yes, we didn’t help of leadership,” everyone we could Prather said. help, but we helped Prather said he get a lot of people received a tour of Texas National Guard vehicles are parked on a blocked off street after the flood of 1998. Debris from back into homes, the damaged area flood-damaged homes can be seen piled on lawns at the right. and that showed and saw things he me that our effort was not wasted at all,” Prather said he had entities reporting to said were too awful to share. He said his Prather said. “We all learned so much from him each day on what was coming in and next stop was at his church. that experience. We had groups and people what was going out. As monetary donations “I knelt at the alter and asked the good doing things they didn’t realize they could increased, Prather said he worked with Bill Lord to help me,” Prather said. do. All it took was someone to pull them all Cauthorn and The Bank & Trust to create For the next several months Prather together, and that’s what we did.” • an account to handle the funds and then worked hand-in-hand with local public worked to determine if the requests for and private groups to determine what

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Calderons’ Catastrophe Memo’s Restaurant and the Calderons had seen floods in the past, but nothing prepared them for what they lived through that night in 1998 Story and photos by RUBÉN CANTÚ

Blondie Calderon’s iconic piano was damaged beyond repair during the flood. The piano was replaced with funds raised by a concert at the Paul Poag Theatre later on. Dolly Calderon still keeps the old piano although she knows it will never play again.

H

aving experienced the damaging effects of floods in the past, the Calderons were somewhat prepared for the swelling of the San Felipe Creek. However, the catastrophic rains that poured over Del Rio during Aug. 23-24, 1998, had little to no precedent at all.

The location of their homes at the intersection of Losoya and Calderon Lane, right next to the creek, made them especially vulnerable to the overflowing of this mostly peaceful body of water.

Memo’s Restaurant, 804 E Losoya St., opened in 1946, and by the very next year the venue suffered its first major flooding.

The restaurant was also affected in subsequent floods, including the historical 30

GRANDE / AUGUST 2018

rains of 1954.

“The water came so fast that we hardly had time to do anything,” said Pat Calderon, 110 Calderon Lane, who spent that night trapped inside the house taking care of his 82-year-old mother None “Lita” Calderon.

“The water broke a brick wall.”

In his recollection of the events of 20 years ago, Pat said he didn’t have time to take Lita out of the house, so they had to utilize anything and everything to stay alive.

As they were trapped inside the house waiting for someone to come to the rescue, the water would continue to rise by the minute.

“I had my mom in the bedroom, in bed, and she refused to leave. She said the creek

would go down as usual,” Pat said.

After going to the back of the house and seeing a refrigerator in the backyard carried by the current, Pat knew this time was different.

“After the water started coming in the house, I put her on the bed, but then the water started coming real fast, there were mattresses floating, so I got her and took her to the door leading to the living room,” Pat said.

With the water rising and desperate to find a way out, a piece of furniture came floating across Pat and his mother. “A love seat came floating thank God,” he said.

He placed her on top of the couch while he was holding it.

But the water was still rising and soon enough Pat had to find a way to keep his own head out of the water.

“That was when I floated the couch toward a corner of the room. We had one of those big television sets, and I stood on top of it,” Pat said.

By then the electricity was long gone, and Pat and Lita had only the light of a single candle and an emergency flashlight.

Surprisingly enough the candle lasted all night, while the flashlight, which was not waterproof, was still operational after being submerged several times.

Pat received some unlikely assistance in taking care of Lita. Two dogs and a cat kept her warm through the night.

“I laid one dog behind her, another one in the front, and a cat on her shoulders,” Pat said.

Also, a floating end table full of newspapers provided additional cover when Lita complained of getting cold.

The whole ordeal was a combination of oddities, since their chances of survival were very slim, and they both made it out not only alive, but mostly unscathed.

“Through all of the furniture falling and breaking, surprisingly we didn’t sustain any injuries, we were very calm, everybody thought we had drowned but we didn’t even suffer hypothermia,” Pat said.

In the morning they were both rescued.

Pat’s nephews, Ricky Calderon and George Calderon, came along with first responders in a boat and took them out of the building.

“They took Lita, and then I gave one of the dogs to the rescuers, everyone made it out of there,” Pat said.

Freddy Calderon, Pat’s brother, was driving back home along with their other brother, Moises “Blondie” Calderon. They had been playing with Ray Price’s band in Illinois.

“When we got to Sonora, it was pouring.

A small car ahead of us was having trouble passing the low crossings,” said Freddy.

When they got to Del Rio they found the roads closed and had to find a way around the road closure.

“We drove through Buena Vista and somehow made it to Main Street,” Freddie said.

Freddy and Blondie couldn’t drive through so they stopped a garbage truck and asked the driver if he would take them to their homes on Calderon Lane.

“We arrived home, and I barely had time

Dolly Calderon points to the water mark left by the flood. Inside the restaurant the water reached about 8-foot high.

GRANDE / AUGUST 2018

31

to take my family out,” Freddy, who lives at 109 Calderon Lane, said. “We got out so fast that we didn’t even think of taking the car. I left my family and went back to get the car.”

As soon as drove across the creek the bridge collapsed.

Blondie, who passed away two years later in 2000, went into his house at 105 Calderon Lane where he found his daughter Patricia, she said.

“I was looking at the creek swell, and my father had told me that if the water reached the second step it was time to leave, but the water was coming from the other side,” Patricia recalls.

The runoff coming from Veterans Boulevard and the north side of the city flooded their homes before the San Felipe Creek reached a dangerous level at that point. Patricia and Blondie made it out of the building and found safe ground.

Dolly Calderon, Patricia’s mother, was in El Paso during the flood visiting a family member who was in the hospital.

“I saw on TV the flood in Del Rio, and I immediately flew to San Antonio to come back home, but I couldn’t get to Del Rio until Wednesday (three days later) because all the roads were closed,” Dolly said.

Pat received a Crossroads Award 2000 from the American Red Cross for his heroic actions saving his mother.

Dolly and Blondie eventually reopened Memo’s Restaurant in September 1999, after extensive reconstruction that included a new grand piano to replace the one that was destroyed in the flood.

Although all the Calderons interviewed agreed that they want to forget what they went through, they also agree that getting over it is important, and that the chances of something like this happening again are very, very slim.•

TOP: The destruction inside Memo’s Restaurant caused by the raging waters is evident in the kitchen area.

MIDDLE: Calderon Auto Supply was destroyed by the flood. The store reopened a short time later but the financial damage caused by the storm led to the business’ ultimate closure.

BOTTOM: Survivors of the tragedy from the left: Freddy Calderon and wife Irma, Pat Calderon, Dolly Calderon, and Patricia Calderon.

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First responders The flood as experienced by firefighters, peace officers

Del Rio Fire Department Chief Joe Harrington, left, and DRFD Deputy Chief David Harrison stand in the parking lot of Del Rio Rotary Park, the area where they were stranded on a fire truck during the Flood of 1998. The two men rescued two Del Rio police officers who had taken refuge on the roof of the Riverside Café in the area when a wave of water doused the fire truck’s engine. The four men spent the night on the fire truck until rescue arrived with the daylight.

Fire chiefs recall night they spent on truck in floodwaters Story by KAREN GLEASON; photos by DAVID HARRISON and KAREN GLEASON

I

t had been raining on and off most of the day.

But it was a Sunday, and Del Rio Fire Department Capt. Joe Harrington had the day off, and he worked around his home, about three miles west of Del Rio in anticipation of going back to work the next day, Monday, Aug. 24, 1998.

“That Sunday morning, I had met with Chief (Harold) Bean, and we had gone to the Del Rio Mobile Home Village to see where the water was, because there had already been quite a bit of rain and we had some concerns about accessing the back of that facility (the mobile home village),” Harrington said.

“There was a drainage ditch right through the middle of it, but they had a back gate, and we’d discussed with them about opening that gate up so people could get in and out that way, never expecting the amount of rain that we were going to get that night. It caught everybody off guard,” he said.

Harrington and Bean spoke to some of the residents about their concerns, then Harrington went home and made some preparations to go back to work the next day.

He said he continued listening to the rain, one ear on the fire

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department radio and toward evening, decided he should head in to work, a sense of worry rising in his mind.

“This was later in the evening. It was already dark out, the clouds, the rain, everything else,” he said.

The worry gnawing at the back of Harrington’s mind ratcheted up another notch as he drove toward Del Rio on Highway 90.

“I’m coming in on Highway 90, and there’s a dip in the road over there where the ‘Computer Doctor’ has his sign up on the fence out toward Lake Amistad. Well, the road was underwater. There was water over the road, and I thought, ‘This is not a good sign,’” he said.

“I got into town, and as I got into the area around Kings Way, there was a lot of water standing, and there were no lights on, and there’s water across the highway at Brown Automotive, clear across the road, and that’s when I told myself, ‘We are going to have issues. This is going to be a long night,’” Harrington said. “And when I say over the highway, I mean, it was up to the steps of the pickup, and I was driving a fourwheel-drive, three-quarter-ton pickup.”

But not even he could have foreseen how long a night it would actually be.

Debris left behind after the floodwaters of the San Felipe Creek receded are draped over the chain link fence around the Moore Park Pool. Portions of the fence were shoved off their moorings and in turn damaged a pipe railing on a walkway on the west side of the pool area.

The Gillis Avenue approach to the Losoya Street Bridge was pulverized into rubble by the flood waters that swept down the San Felipe Creek in the early morning hours of Monday, Aug. 24, 1998. Damaged infrastructure hampered some search and rescue missions and became a priority as the city began to rebuild.

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A jumble of furniture, cabinets, appliances and carrizo torn up by the flood waters came to rest in the courtyard outside the Casa de la Cultura on Brown Plaza. Floodwaters also rushed through the building, forcing the city to have to completely rebuild the structure.

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Harrington drove to the Central Fire Station on East Losoya Street and got ready to go to work.

“The engines companies were here, people were here, the chief was here, David (Harrison) was here.

The radio system was down, and I pulled my pickup in and gave chief access to the radio equipment, and that’s when Chief Harrison and I got on the rescue truck and left,” Harrington said.

He said the truck was an F750, a small fire truck about the size, height and length of a dump truck.

Harrison, an engineer with the department the year of the flood, drove.

“We began responding to radio calls, wherever they told us they needed some help, that’s where we went, in San Felipe, over on Ogden Street, just getting people and pulling them out, taking them out. We took one or two people that were on oxygen over to the hospital so they could be at a support facility, and then we got the call to go down to San Felipe and started heading down that way,” Harrington said.

Harrison headed the truck south on Canal Street.

“We came across the Canal Street Bridge, got

across that, and got to the Riverside Café that was on the right hand side of Canal once you got across the bridge. We pulled up over there and there were two people there on the roof of that building, and they’re both cops. I told them they needed to come down off there because that’s building’s not going to stay, and we finally got them down and onto the truck,” Harrington said.

In that moment a wave of water washed over the truck’s engine.

“It killed it. . . It’s one of those things where, if you’re in that type of water, it can rise so fast it can catch you completely off-guard, because when we got there, the water was at the running boards of the truck, maybe two feet deep, and it came over the top of the engine and killed the truck. The water didn’t rise, it was a wall, a wave,” the chief said.

Harrington and the police officers climbed onto the truck’s highest point and parceled out the life vests on the vehicle.

Harrington said he wasn’t worried that the truck would be washed away.

“That truck was heavy. It had 500 gallons of

water in it, and it had a lot of other iron on it. It was a rescue truck so it had a lot of weight on it. So I wasn’t too concerned about it going too far if it went anywhere,” the chief said.

The rushing water eventually moved the truck, turning it until its nose faced downstream.

“We didn’t float, we just spun around. The water took front of that truck and turned it 90 degrees to the right so it faced the café, or where the café had been, because it had washed away,” Harrington said.

As the truck shifted, its front tires dropped into a ditch, effectively trapping the vehicle and keeping it from moving farther.

“And that’s where we stayed. We all spent the night on that truck,” Harrington said.

Harrington said there were no electric lights by which to survey the nightmare landscape.

“I could only see in the lightning flashes and that was very limited, but you heard a lot. You heard people screaming, the yelling, people calling for help, but we couldn’t go anywhere. We were stuck there, pretty much in the same boat as everybody else.

“And that’s the worst feeling you ever want to have as a rescuer, is to be part of the problem. We had enough radio communications to let the people know where we were and that we were okay, and then we lost communications. The radios got too wet, and they died,” Harrington said.

In the intermittent flashes of lightning, Harrington said he could no longer see the railings of the Canal Street Bridge and knew that the water of the creek had risen so much that it was flowing over the structure.

He knew all they could do was wait.

When daybreak came, Harrington said, “ Dawn was starting to break, and we started getting a

little bit of light, and the water started to go down some. One of the things I was watching, there was a little gas station across Canal Street from us, and it had some printing on one of its walls, and when the lightning flashed, I would look to see where the water level was relative to those letters on the wall. I used that as a gauge. It was a great reference point.”

Shortly after dawn, fellow firefighters were able to get another fire engine onto the Canal Street Bridge.

“But there was still too much water to get it off the bridge. We had a downed power line laying right on top of the truck. It was dead, and we got some rappelling gear out, tied it to one end and I bounced it on that line all the way over (to the other truck) to them. They tied their end onto the bridge, and we got us all across one at a time,” he said.

Once back on terra firma, the two firefighters returned to Central Station.

“The first thing I wanted was to find a cup of coffee,” Harrington joked.

Then they went right back to work.

Harrington was the shift commander, monitoring the work of fire crews in the city’s three fire stations.

“At that point, there were rescue crews coming in from out of town, and they had set up a command post out at the airport, and I was running field operations out of here. We went back to our normal activities, which is doing what we had to do,” Harrington said.

Harrington said he is extremely grateful for the help provided by the Laughlin Air Force Base Fire Department.

“They showed up with their fire chief and said, ‘What can we do?’” he said. •

LEFT: Damage from the flood of 1998 to the Dr. Alfredo Gutierrez Amphitheater along the San Felipe Creek.

The flood also damaged or destroyed portions of the San Felipe creek walk, a stone wall built along the bank of the creek in this area.

RIGHT: Sections of cinder block and slabs of concrete and asphalt are all that remain of a thriving area of businesses and homes along Canal and Elm streets as shown in this photo looking north from Andrade Street toward the Canal Street Bridge the day after the flood.

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No Escape: Chief Fred Knoll said there was no skipping town the night of the storm

Then- Sr. Officer Fred Knoll Jr. stands by his fahter’s fire department car that was washed away in the flood. Fred Knoll Sr. was the Del Rio Fire Department Chief in 1998.

Story by MEGAN TACKETT contributed photo by JAMES BOYD

C

hief Fred Knoll Jr. had only served on the Del Rio Police Department for four years before encountering one of the most challenging and taxing shift of his life.

In August 1998, Knoll was assigned to traffic unit and would often monitor the San Felipe neighborhood for traffic infractions. Heavy rainfall throughout the week prior had already plagued his shift with several calls of abandoned vehicles and stranded motorists.

At the end of his 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. shift on Aug. 23, he went home sopping wet in his blue uniform, changed his clothes and drove to a friend’s house in the Cienegas Terrace area to watch a movie. He recalls how the sky opened up and quickly dumped enough rainfall on the city to flood the streets in a matter of minutes.

He left his friend’s house and was immediately faced with challenge of navigating his way home, where his patrol car was parked, through the flooded

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roads.

“I couldn’t get home to get to my patrol car because every road was completely washed out,” Knoll said. “I eventually got to my car and there were people screaming for help over the radio.”

He quickly grabbed his gun belt but forewent wearing his uniform.

“I was in shorts, t-shirt and tennis shoes, and I figured it was probably best because we were fixing to get soaked anyway,” Knoll said.

The young officer spent most of his night at the 277 overpass, Dr. Fermin Calderon, preventing drivers from crossing the bridge that was flooding over from the tremendous rainfall. The road was bubbling beneath from the water was penetrating between the concrete and the base foundation, Knoll said, the possibility that the bridge might capsize terrified Knoll and his fellow officers.

“We were afraid at some point that it was going to give way,” Knoll said. “All the

traffic was coming from the south trying to get across but every escape route from the south of Del Rio was nearly impassable.”

What the now-chief recalls most about the flood of ‘98 was the chaos that ensued during following week. Supplies were depleted, officers were working 12 hour shifts and their health was beginning to deteriorate.

A FEMA doctor, examined Knoll, who was experiencing signs of exhaustion, including high blood pressure and headaches.

“It was all the stress,” Knoll said. “Not sleeping, not eating correctly. Everyone was extremely fatigued.”

As the current leader of the Del Rio Police Department, Knoll prays he, his officers and the community will never have to face the devastation that Del Rio experienced in 1998. But if the day comes, Knoll will act swiftly without a second thought. •

Nothing but rain: Former police corporal shares the struggles of rescuing in the rain Story by MEGAN TACKETT; Photo by Karen Gleason

S

teve Berg had just started his shift as the police department’s officerin-charge when the torrential downpour that led to historical flood of 1998 turned the city’s roads turned into rivers.

The current Val Verde County Pct. 3 Constable responded to calls all over the city that night, rescuing residents from their flooded homes while also assisting with the usual Saturday night incidents.

But no matter where he went, the rainfall hindered his efforts.

“It was pouring down so hard you couldn’t see,” said Berg, who was a corporal at the time. “I’ve been through hurricanes, and I’ve never seen water come down that fast. It was a scary thing.”

The floodwaters had already reached the window sills of one-story homes 30 minutes into his shift at 10:30 p.m., Berg said. He began pulling people from their homes in a neighborhood around 12th Street and Avenue P and transporting them

to the civic center for shelter, he said.

While many citizens needed rescuing from the rising floodwaters, the night’s usual calls kept coming in. Earlier in the night, Berg was responded to Sixth Street for a domestic dispute involving a knifewielding man. The officer approached the residence with his gun drawn, but visibility was so poor, he couldn’t see past the end of his firearm.

“I couldn’t see past where my gun was pointed,” Berg said. “That’s how hard it was raining.”

The terrifying responsibility for first responders is the selfless duty to put yourself in danger to rescue someone in peril. In most situations, Berg said officers will put themselves at risk to help an individual, putting their own well-being on hold for a moment.

“No matter what you’re responding to, you think about your family,” Berg said.

“But your mind starts racing about how you’re going to protect this person. You go

into police mode and all you think about is, ‘What can I do to save this person?’”

Unfortunately, the flood brought a handful of situations that were deemed too dangerous for the officers’ pursuance.

At one point during the night, Berg waded into rushing waters to rescue a woman stranded in a tree until he found himself shoulders-deep in the flood. He made the difficult decision to turn around and wait for the waters to recede, but when he returned, the woman was gone. Five years later, he was relieved to find out the woman was rescued by a civilian boat.

Despite the night’s devastating events, Berg said the citizens of Del Rio showed their true colors by coming together in the flood’s wake.

“Even though it was a major tragedy, it was still it was a crowning moment for the city,” Berg said. “We showed the country that the city will come together in crisis.”•

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Former sheriff recalls how flood united community Story by KAREN GLEASON; Photos by KAREN GLEASON and LARRY POPE

A.

D’Wayne Jernigan spent a career in federal law enforcement.

Following his retirement, he was elected Val Verde County Sheriff in 1996 and after an extended legal battle during which opponents unsuccessfully challenged the validity of military mail-in ballots, he had taken office in June of 1997.

A year later, in the summer of 1998, he was finally settling into the role, “figuring out what a sheriff does,” as he put it.

On the Sunday of the flood, Jernigan and his wife Imelda had gone to their church, and he remembered hearing other parishioners’ concerns about the rain.

“After church I jumped in my truck and

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the first thing I hit was standing water on Stricklen (Avenue). The water there was knee deep already. There was a car in the water, and Jernigan used the pickup’s winch to pull it out.

“I reached out to the mayor – my recollection was that it was in the afternoon – and told him I was out surveying the situation to see what was going on. I also reached out to the chief of police,” he said.

“Sometime during the afternoon, I picked up the mayor at the time, Roberto “Bob” Chavira, and stayed with him well into the night. I tried to get to the sheriff’s office, but Highway 90 was already under water,” Jernigan said.

He also called the Department of Emergency Management in Austin to let them know that things were getting bad in Del Rio. “I told them, ‘We’re going to have to have help,’ and they told me they could only send help if there had been an emergency declaration by the county judge or mayor.

I told them, ‘You’d better get ready. We can’t get ahold of the county judge, but the mayor’s right here with me,’ but I told them to start preparing, whatever they could send. Then I put the mayor on the phone,” Jernigan recalled.

He said he learned later that the state began staging helicopters and National Guard troops in Uvalde immediately after.

the night and began thinking about setting some people out of the water. There wasn’t Jernigan and Chavira also tried to make up an emergency operations center on high hardly an area that you went to where there their way into San Felipe. ground, eventually settling on the Border wasn’t people calling for help, and so you’d “We couldn’t get into San Felipe from Patrol’s new air operations hangar at the wade into a house and here’s somebody up Pecan and Academy streets, and we were at airport. on a couch or a refrigerator or a bed,” he the Hill home on the southwestern bank of His first view of the devastating effects said. the creek. All up and down there you could of the flood was from a Border Patrol “You put them in your vehicle, get them hear people screaming, and I knew the helicopter shortly after daybreak. to dry land and move on to the next one.

Hills had a boat in the backyard. . . That’s “I couldn’t believe when I encountered the extent of the a group of Border damage.

Nothing Patrol agents and we where houses used tried to get the boat to be, the San Felipe and launch it to help area washed down the people across the the creek. Trees, big creek. The water was trees down, the debris, up and already kicking cars, trucks, an RV in the boat around, it was the creek, numerous that high,” Jernigan vehicles in the water,” said. he said.

Jernigan and the Jernigan gave high Border Patrol agents praise to Chavira tried to make a human and the work the chain to get into the mayor did in opening water, but he recalled the civic center and the water was very shelter cold and so swift, they A scene of devastation along the banks of the San Felipe Creek as seen from the Academy Street providing the hundreds were nearly washed Bridge. The two-story home in the center of the photo was heavily damaged in the flood and eventually for left homeless and away. razed. displaced by the flood.

“Directly across the “I remember talking creek from me I heard to the Texas governor . . . it sounded like at the time, George death. Screams, ‘Help, Bush, and he offered help, help, please help whatever help they us.’ I felt helpless. You could give. I told him could hear them, you it would be great if he could see them in the could come down here lightning flashes, but and encourage the there was no way to people, and he said he get to them. You could would come the next see houses coming day,” Jernigan said. off their foundations, “My most lasting so you knew it was memory is the will powerful,” he said. of the people of Val They were never Verde County to able to reach the boat, respond in such a and he reached out to a captain for the Texas A giant mess greeted San Felipe homeowners when they returned to their properties in the days after positive manner in a game wardens, Pete the flood. Mud and silt covered streets and driveways, and wrecked vehicles and other large pieces time of distress, in a time of danger, to help Flores, and asked for of debris carried by the floodwaters were left in yards. each other, regardless them to bring boats. of anything. That’s what stands out in my You just didn’t have time to do anything Jernigan said he continued on to other mind, probably more than anything else, else, because there’s more people calling, areas along the creek. that they overlooked their differences when so once you get this one to safety, you just He remembered the night was miserable, it counted the most, when there’s danger go on to the next. And you don’t know who pitch-dark, everything inside and outside surrounding you everywhere and to help these people are, they’re just voices in the the truck soaking wet, the rain still falling each other without question or thought of darkness, pleading for help,” Jernigan said. in sheets. reward,” he said. • The sheriff stayed in the area throughout “The good feeling was being able to pull

GRANDE / AUGUST 2018

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Memories of a tragedy Whitehead Memorial Museum’s Flood of 1998 exhibit commemorates Del Rio’s worst natural disaster.

Story and photos by MEGAN TACKETT

Newspaper headlines described the flood days and weeks following the devastating storm. Clips from the stories can be found at the Whitehead Memorial Museum’s Flood of 1998 exhibit.

C

ommunity museums hold a place for curious visitors and reminiscing residents alike to leisurely explore an area’s history, the beautiful, the intriguing and the

horrific.

The Whitehead Memorial Museum opened its “Flood of 1998” exhibit in 2014 after a handful of community members donated several photos that tell part of the tragic story of Del Rio’s worst natural disaster. Museum Director Michael Diaz said the museum eventually acquired enough items to create an exhibit to memorialize the historic flood.

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“The donors wanted the items to be shown and preserved,” Diaz said. “Little by little the exhibit grew to what it is today.”

In addition to a handful of photo albums, Diaz received a few artifacts to help detail the flood’s entire story. Tucked away in one of the exhibit’s corners is the rainfall gauge that measured the unprecedented rainfall Del Rio endured Aug. 23 and Aug. 24 1998.

The gauge, specifically known to meteorologists as a “pluviometer of intensities,” measures the average intensity of rainfall in a certain interval of time. The rotating tin drum

drags a sheet of paper that records the height millimeters with a pen that moves vertically, driven by a buoy, marking on the paper the rainfall over the time.

Located above the gauge in the exhibit is a copy of the physical record the gauge produced during the storm’s most intense hours. The record clearly indicates a high spike in rainfall between the hours of 10 p.m. on Aug. 23 and 2 a.m. on Aug. 24, measuring about 12 inches of rainfall in 12 hours.

Two items are also kept in the exhibit that illustrate corporate contributions to the humanitarian efforts following the flood. An unopened aluminum can and glass bottle of water manufactured by Anheuser Busch are kept in the exhibit as a representation of the generous donations of critical supplies provided

“The donors wanted the items to be shown and preserved,” Diaz said. “Little by little the exhibit grew to what it is today.”

TOP: The exhibit includes a copy of the original rainfall gauge’s record from night of Aug. 23 and morning of Aug. 24. The record is created by a rotating tin drum that drags a sheet of paper to record the height millimeters with a pen that moves vertically, driven by a buoy, marking on the rainfall on the paper.

CENTER: This painted box was found wrapped in a plastic grocery bag, inexplicably left on the remains of a property destroyed by the flood.

BOTTOM: A can and a bottle of unopened water is featured in the exhibit to show contributions that were made to Del Rio from outside the community.

during the disastrous event.

An especially interesting item donated to the exhibit is a wooden jewelry box, painted with colorful flowers. The box, the donor explained to Diaz, was found wrapped in a plastic grocery bag, inexplicably left on the remains of a property destroyed by the flood. It was the sole item left from the home, and no person has ever come forward to claim it, Diaz said.

The exhibit also includes hours of home video footage, donated by Juan Reyna, which provides an live-action narrative of the wreckage that the city and its citizens endured.

The museum is always accepting new donations to the exhibit, Diaz said. He hopes more contributors come forward to help continue to build the feature that commemorates Del Rio’s worst natural disaster and honors the nine men and women who lost their lives. • GRANDE / AUGUST 2018

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Where the wild things are A look at the FEMA property today Story and photos by KAREN GLEASON

T

here is a ribbon of green that parallels the course of the San Felipe Creek as it runs south from the U.S. Highway 90 Bridge.

The city of Del Rio acquired a great many properties located in this swath of green after the flood of 1998, using money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to buy out property owners. Today, those properties comprise parts of Lt. Thomas Romanelli Memorial Park, an unnamed greenway downstream of the Academy Street Bridge, Del Rio Rotary Park and the Rincon del Diablo.

There are stringent restrictions for

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building on that land now. So far, the city has built no permanent structures there, and for the most part, Mother Nature has reclaimed them.

Human beings don’t live right on the banks of the creek in these areas anymore, but the land is still home to a dizzying kaleidoscope of life: plants, insects amphibians, reptiles, birds and small mammals.

More than 100 species of birds have been documented along the San Felipe Creek in this area, including species that call this area home all year, winter migrants from the cold north and occasionally, rare

wanderers from other parts of the country or the hemisphere.

The green space serves important functions: a filter that prevents tons of litter and trash from blowing into the crystalclear waters, the thick vegetation an anchor stabilizing the sandy soil, keeping it in place during flood events.

The city has plans for the area, extending the hike and bike trail, creating kayak launch and take-out stations, but so far, few concentrated efforts have been made to carry out those plans.

Here are some photos taken in those areas purchased by the city. •

Photographed in the city’s FEMA property along the San Felipe Creek: This page, clockwise from upper left: Male Green Kingfisher, Black-crested Titmouse, male Slough Amberwing dragonfly, female Halloween Pennant dragonfly and Painted Lady butterfly. Opposite page: female Ringed Kingfisher

GRANDE / AUGUST 2018

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Opposite page, clockwise from upper left: Great Kiskadee, male Vermilion Flycatcher, Couch’s Kingbird, male Widow Skimmer dragonfly.

This page, clockwise from upper left: Queen butterfly, male Ladder-backed Woodpecker, congregation of Monarch butterflies, one section of the FEMA property along Barron Street and Carolina Wren.

GRANDE / AUGUST 2018

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Last Look

Hello readersWe sincerely thank you for taking the time to read through our most somber edition of Grande magazine, where we commemorate the 20th anniversary of the flood of 1998.

I was living 2,000 miles away from Del Rio in August 1998. I honestly felt a tugging weight of guilt while interviewing people who encountered the flood’s tragic events. It felt oddly wrong to illustrate in words what these people endured 20 years ago when I, myself, was not here to witness the wreckage firsthand.

Furthermore, I’ve personally never experienced a natural disaster that measured to the magnitude of Del Rio’s 1998 flood. I occasionally hear my family’s stories of witnessing from a safe distance the aftermath of Mt. St. Helen’s 1984 eruption.

Personally, I once had to take shelter under a desk in a classroom during an earthquake, but our schools had practiced plenty of drills to prepare ourselves for that situation.

Unfortunately, what I learned in the making of this issue is it’s not as easy to prepare for a flash flood.

That’s the general consensus I gathered from those I interviewed: “We weren’t prepared.” And to no fault of their own from what I can tell. What broke my heart the most was hearing the lingering guilt many feel two decades later about what they could have done differently.

Writing the Tropical Storm Charley story was somewhat of an emotional relief as there was an element of separation to approach the flood from a scientific point of view. I must thank Dan Schreiber, Smalltown Weatherman, for his continuing contributions to my articles. He always comes through in a pinch.

I’m so sorry that many of the wonderful people I’ve met while in Del Rio had to experience the devastating capabilities of Mother Nature’s wrath. I hope this vibrant community never sees another event as tragic as the flood of 1998.

Thanks again for reading. See you next month.

Megan Tackett Creative Director

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TOP: We printed this iconic flood photo, contributed by the Whitehead Memorial Museum, onto photo paper to use as a prop for our cover shot.

CENTER: Creative Director Megan Tackett builds the vision board for this edition.

BOTTOM: Editor Karen Gleason marked all the photos used for this issue with blue sticky notes.

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