Flash Flood in Chihuahua City and violence in the Mexican state of Chihuahua

The other side of the border.

Lily Dueñas
Julio de 2015, 12:29 pm

Chihuahua, Chih.- Dead is a word on everyday newspapers here in México, but this past week not only bullets have been news in this land where the climate is mostly deserted, rain became a nightmare in the capital city of Chihuahua, for the flooded streets, houses and damages it caused. Same in other municipalities of the State. Independence Day, July 4, was a dark Saturday for people of Chihuahua, it was reported that more than two inches of water fell in only 30 minutes, worst flash flood registered in 25 years according to the stamen of no other than the governor himself, Cesar Horacio Duarte Jáquez, who told people that no dead or significant damage to city was done for the heavy rain.

But on the morning of July 6, the words that Duarte Jáquez said had been washed away by the water itself, for one dead body was found on one of the city’s water canal, and contrary to the first statement of the governor, it was his administration that pushed hard to get federal resources to “reconstruct the city damages”, obtaining the approval from federal government to get access to the Fondo Nacional para el Desarrollo Nacional (FONDEN) , which acts like the Federal Emergency Management Agency: FEMA.

A video of a guy trying to save a Hummer truck from the water current, went viral on Youtube, but in the areas where poor people live, where they had no videos to show their damaged homes, no one cared. Just a day later, July 7, another flash flood gave the far South area of the city, the look of naked poverty, for winds took a speed of more than 31 miles per hour, causing people to loose everything they had. Even urbanized parts of the city suffered from the wind speed, and the infrastructure was not enough to contain the water from flooding, now governments, local and state, have announced the’re gonna use federal resources to make a better water infrastructure, but the houses and belongings of people affected by the flash flood, was not issued in the announce.

At the beginning of this writing, I said that not only bullets had been the news, time to tell you about the impact of the bullets. A little municipality in Chihuahua named Guadalupe Distrito Bravo, near Juarez, with a population of no more than 5,000 inhabitants, had only five local police agents to guard it. During the week, one of those five was brutally shot many times, Joaquin Hernandez was declared dead on the scene.

Another shocking impact was the statement to the media from governor Cesar Duarte, who said that no cops or reinforcement were needed in Guadalupe.

This is not the first time this town, located in the area known as Valle de Juarez, is been stained with police blood. Erika Gándara, was the only female police in Guadalupe, and on december 2010, she was kidnapped and later found dead; the homicides related to organized crime, habe been a main disease in a town that is located near the border, and up to now, no government has taken action.

To continue this tale of blood, another two man were shot dead just two days later, making three dead on the same municipality in one week. Still, no reinforcements will be send.