Reprint from the Progress Times - July 25, 2008
©Progress Times 2008 - All Rights Reserved

 

Mission and other communities cope with Dolly

 

By David Rodriguez

As President Bush declared Dolly a major disaster for Texas Thursday morning, July 24, Mission City Manager Julio Cerda took time to reassure the residents that while nearly 30 percent of the city was still without power, they need not worry about Mission’s water supply.

“There is no power down in any of the water plants. The quality of water is the same as if it was 10 days ago,” said Cerda. “The power went down in the sewer pump stations but they are taken care of. Crews have been out there since early last night. There is no backage in sewer and no backage in any of our sewer plants.”

The announcement came as the city of McAllen issued an advisory for residents to try to limit water use because of potential sewage issues. The city urged residents to limit taking showers or using toilets as well as using drinking water.

Water problems were not limited to McAllen. The city of Edcouch reported major problems with running water in the early morning hours Thursday. Although County health officials have voiced concerns about possible contamination of water, according to Cerda, Mission is doing just fine.

“Our sewer plants are 100 percent. Everything is at 100 percent as far as water and sewer,” said Cerda. “Some of the pump stations (sewer lift stations) were down because of lines that were out. Those are being worked on currently. There is no backage of any sewer anywhere in the city. Our biggest problems were power outages and power lines that were down and trees and debris but we’ve had crews working on this since Tuesday night.”

Captain Douglas Williams, Shift Commander for the Mission Fire Department, had forty men on duty during the storm. The crew, along with volunteer fire fighters, worked to deal with dangling traffic lights, fallen trees, fire alarms and broken power lines. According to Williams, his crew was busy from 4:00 p.m. to midnight when activity tapered off.

“It was a really big storm,” said Williams. “As far as damage goes I think we got off very lucky.”

Mission Police Department spokesman Lieutenant Martin Garza said the department kept busy from midnight to 6:00 a.m. Thursday morning with 228 hurricane related calls including five emergency calls and two calls regarding houses engulfed in fire.

A roof at 1300 Aldea, within the Aldeas Apartments collapsed due to heavy rain. There were no injuries, and The occupants were evacuated.

Post hurricane precautions given

The Texas AgriLife Extension Service, in response to hurricane Dolly and in expectation of a protracted cleanup process in the Rio Grande Area has issued public service announcements to help residents stay safe after the clouds clear.

Residents, especially those in McAllen and areas where the drinking water may be contaminated in the early cleanup stages, are encouraged to drink only commercially bottled water, boil clear water for 10 minutes to make it safe or, if you cannot boil water, contact your county health department for recommendations about safe methods of water purification.

Other tips regarding sanitation from the Texas AgriLife Extension Service are to use the cap of your Clorox bottle as a measure to add one cap of Clorox to dish water, inspect and clean bedding, use chemical toilets if available, wear shoes at all times to prevent parasitic infections, throw away any and all foods in the refrigerator shortly after losing power. Any refrigerated foods, which have been at room temperature for more than two hours, must be thrown out.

According to the Texas AgriLife Extension Service, many people are unaware of the problems power outages pose to refrigerators. The Extension Service recommends that you clean and deodorize your refrigerator, turn on refrigerator and fill it with clean, crumpled newspaper that has been sprinkled with water then run the refrigerator for several days, changing newspapers frequently to completely deodorize.