Willacy hurricane update

SEBASTIAN - Some residents of this small Willacy County town were dealing with severe flooding on Thursday in the aftermath of Hurricane Dolly.

The area between County Road 1200 and Pauline County Road on Business 77, just west of Expressway 77, flooded when an irrigation canal, which runs parallel to Pauline County Road, overflowed.

Nearly all of the dozen homes in the area were surrounded by waist-deep water.

"Inside the house the whole place is covered in about four inches of water. It's a total mess," said Jesse Tijerina, a resident here for the past five years.

His next-door neighbor, Irma Vela, was also contending with the flood.

And while she said the inside of her trailer was spared, outside the water went up past her waist as she tried to tend to her livestock in the backyard.

"The cows are really scared because they have water up past their stomachs," said Vela's granddaughter, Tiffany Vela, who was helping with the cleanup.

Other Willacy County communities fared much better.

In Port Mansfield only minor damage was visible, such as downed power lines, broken tree branches, and a few damaged homes and structures.

Glee Castor of Mission was in town Thursday, cleaning up after an empty boat storage facility she rented collapsed.

"Luckily we had moved the boat out of the place before," she said as her and her family searched the rubble for other lost items.

The damage was also minor in Lyford and Raymondville, which is prone to flooding.

Dolores Rubio of Raymondville was rather proud of how her neighborhood on West White Avenue, just south of FM 186 - Main Street- stood up to Dolly.

While many streets in her area were flooded, water did not breach her home and damage was minimal.

"It got pretty bad here around 1:50 p.m. or so when the storm hit," said Rubio, who rode out the storm by herself.

"I expected the damage to be a bit worse around here, but the house is fine and all my neighbors are OK. We survived and that's what counts."

Wind damage, however, was much worse in parts of the county.

Across Willacy County, Hurricane Dolly ripped roofs off about 200 homes, Frank Torres, the county's emergency management coordinator, said.

"There's massive damage," Torres said.

Winds of up to 100 mph ripped roofs from houses in Raymondville, Lyford, San Perlita and Port Mansfield, Torres said.

"We had a couple of hundred roofs blown off homes," Torres said. "That's a conservative estimate."