DR volunteers serve displaced families in Rio Bravo
RIO BRAVO--The young mother braved difficult circumstances and gave birth to a baby girl right around the time a tropical storm overflowed the waters of the Rio Grande, engulfing her home in its currents. Her family, left without a home, food, water or even shoes, now has a new life to take care of and an old life to rebuild.
The receding waters left behind inches of mud coating everything in sight. Without shoes to protect their feet from the bacteria-ridden mud and broken glass, her children are susceptible to cuts, scrapes and infections.
As local law enforcement dropped by to assess her needs, they found her washing her children's bloodied and dirty feet with the little bit of clean water she had left. The well-being of her family surpassed any need of her own, even after having just given birth.
Southern Baptists of Texas Convention Disaster Relief volunteers were deployed to Rio Bravo just over a week after the July 8 storm hit the area, assessing the needs of local residents before deploying a mud out unit that served 54 families. According to the Webb County Sherriff's Department, around 70 houses received some sort of water damage, many of them completely submerged. The storm's damage will be felt for months to come.
With a population of 5,657, Rio Bravo is situated on a slanted region between Laredo where a quarter of a million people live, and the border of Mexico. The community is feeling the weight of their loss far more than some of the other towns affected by flooding, according to a local deputy who explained that the majority of the residents live below the poverty level. The already rising crime rate has skyrocketed as the houses left vulnerable by the flooding are burglarized.
"Of the families we helped, we didn't run across anyone who had insurance," added Jerry Bishop of Lufkin who assumed leadership as "white cap" the final week of their work. "They are living day to day."
Identity theft, burglaries, drug trafficking and illegal border crossings are among the problems law enforcement officials face, causing the Border Patrol to be on full alert. In many cases, they have yet to fully assess the damages because of the overwhelming needs of the people and the lack of resources to help them.
Nena Segeba, a local resident who lived on the bank of the river, is still searching for a reason to be hopeful as she continues to care for her nine-month old child. Her trailer was one of the first homes engulfed by the floodwaters, situated less than 200 feet from the Rio Grande.
Raging floodwaters and an increase in crime are not the only problems Rio Bravo faces in the aftermath of the storm. Once the thick mud dries and turns to dust, the harmful particles will pollute the air with bacteria and cause breathing difficulties for residents, explained Webb County Sherriff's Deputy Cesar Estrado. Fleas, ticks and mosquitoes thrive in the dense summer heat and standing water, posing an additional problem for children who play outside, he said.
In some cases, residents have been able to seek refuge with relatives in the area until their homes are rebuilt. In other cases, Estrada said, "A lot of illegal people lost everything so they are moving back to Mexico."
Southern Baptists Disaster Relief (SBDR) volunteers, some having deployed a few weeks earlier to Eagle Pass and Laredo following Hurricane Alex, began assessing the damage to Rio Bravo once the water had receded enough for access. Mud-out and shower teams from SBTC were in place July 16, assisted by a laundry unit and volunteers from the Louisiana Baptist Convention and mud out volunteers from the Baptist Convention of New Mexico.
Bishop and his wife, Geraldine, trained a cooking unit in Del Rio on July 12 that took the equipment 100 miles beyond the border of Mexico to serve displaced residents, connecting with an ongoing ministry of missionary Glenn Pierce ofFriendly Baptist Church in Tyler. By the next day the Bishops were joining mud-out teams stationed out of
