Soaked El Paso hopes earthen dam holds

[blonndee]

Soaked El Paso hopes earthen dam holds

Friday, August 4, 2006; Posted: 1:07 p.m. EDT (17:07 GMT)

EL PASO, Texas (AP) -- Almost 1,000 people waited in a shelter in El Paso, Texas, Friday to see whether the rain-swollen Rio Grande would puncture an earthen dam and flood the community, a city spokeswoman said.

Water was seeping out of the aging, badly eroded dam across the Mexican border in Ciudad Juarez, and crews spent much of the night pumping out the area, spokeswoman Juliet Lozano said. U.S. engineers were headed to the site Friday, she said.

<snip>

Between 1,500 and 2,000 residents were asked to leave downtown El Paso after the Army Corps of Engineers estimated that a dam break could set free up to 6 million gallons of water there.

"We're talking like a tidal wave hitting El Paso," Mayor John Cook said.

full story at http://www.cnn.com/2006/WEATHER/08/04/Texas.rains.ap/index.html

[babylonsister]

1. Holy Moly! It's so odd; I live in Houston and this remains a blip

on the local news, even though we're in the same state. Should that dam break, I imagine the local yokels will be paying more attention.

[dogday]

3. Me too and the same here!

I have heard nada about this... Wow, I hope they will be ok...:hug:

[mom cat]

2. No climate change huh?

[DeepModem Mom]

4. The story is not quite right. Usual yearly rainfall fell on Wednesday --

According to the article, 8.5 inches so far this year (I think 10 inches is about usual for the year). What the article doesn't say is that almost all of those inches fell on one day, Wednesday.

[blonndee]

5. The last sentence of the article says that. n/t

[DeepModem Mom]

6. They said "this week" -- it really was almost all on that one day! nt

[blonndee]

7. Wow. That's a BUNCH of rain for one day, especially

in dry El Paso. No wonder they're having trouble. I hope they can get the dam shored up and repaired soon.

[DeepModem Mom]

9. The dam problem was fixed, thank goodness! nt

[Orangepeel]

8. ever tried to water a plant that hasn't been watered for a long long time?

the water just runs off because the dirt is too hard and dry to absorb it. That's what happens in El Paso when it rains so much at once. When I was a kid, it rained about 6 inches a year, but it was almost all in the summer. The streets would always flood.

But, from what I've heard from people there, it hasn't done this in years, but now, it's worse than it ever was.

[loudsue]

10. I grew up in El Paso, too, Orangepeel68.

It was really fun when the streets flooded, since we were so unaccustomed to the rain.

:hi: Good to know there are other old El Pasoans on DU!! :loveya:

:kick::kick::kick: