At the beginning of the month there was a rainstorm that over flowed the dam of one of the water reservoirs in Juarez causing flooding that killed six people. For the last week and a half there has been so much water dumped on El Paso and Juarez that reservoirs are overflowing all over the place. Another person was found dead in the rushing waters, and a least two more died in flood related traffic accidents.
There were a few days that we were worried one of the dams would break altogether sending some 600 million gallons of water through two miles of housing before it would reach the Rio Grande. Crews worked for three days straight to empty that reservoir, and they succeeded. (To the relief of both residents in Juarez and El Paso because there was a fear that it would rush over the levies of the river and pour into down town El Paso.) At one point during all the rain the river came very close to topping the levies and pouring out into both cities
This being the desert, the two cities are not prepared to handle the kind of water that we have been seeing, and rightly so. The 30-year average rainfall is slightly over nine inches and some places around the city have seen up to five inches in less then a day. The damage has been substantial to say the least. I am surprised more lives have not been lost.
Although the rain is letting up some, we are not completely out of danger yet. The ground is completely saturated, leaving nowhere for water to go should we get more rain. Unfortunately there is more rain in the forecast.
Below are some picture I took of the damage.
this is the reservoir that we were worried about
