Arroyo City hurricane update

From neighborhoods turned into lakes to roads that became jungles, Hurricane Dolly's memory will live on for some time with some Cameron County residents.

Adolph Thomae Park in Arroyo City is closed until further notice after strong winds uprooted and broke trees in the park.

Fishing piers were nearly submerged by a rising Arroyo and boat ramps were completely immersed.

As of Thursday afternoon, crews worked to clean up the mess left by Dolly and put the park into condition to reopen soon.

"We started this morning," park manager John Todd said. "We can't really assess the damages yet. But there are a lot of broken trees."

The Arroyo is still rising and Todd said that concerns him.

"We haven't seen all that water from Hidalgo County yet," Todd said. "We'll have to wait and see. But, as the water gets close to the top, we'll be getting ready."

Dolly's fierce winds ripped through one family's mobile home also in Arroyo City. The family wished to remain anonymous, but one family member explained that the family was forced out of their home in the middle of the hurricane.

One wall remained from the once-rectangular home, as part of the structure rested on a neighbor's house.

Dolly turned Green Valley Acres into a large body of water, as many of the roads there were impassible. Street signs were nearly covered by the water. Trees stuck out like buoys and houses were like islands.

Vidala Rosales and her family attempted to clean up the area around their home, but high water made it nearly impossible. While the floods were devastating, Rosales said the inundation of 1991 was worse.

"It reached up to here,"' she said, pointing to her chest. "But there were no roads back then. The ground is actually higher now."

Rosales was staying with her brother.

"There are three families in one house right now," she said.

In Lozano, Manuel Villarreal woke up to quite the workload.

Dolly damaged 10 trees on Villarreal's property, varying from ebonies to ash. Four were uprooted, making his yard look like it had been gutted.

The neighborhoods around tiny Lozano had trees and large tree branches littering the ground. Neighbors worked together to clean up the mess at Villarreal's home.

"They just started tipping over," said Villarreal, who was at home during the storm with his wife and daughter. "We started hearing cracking sounds everywhere and started seeing things flying and hitting the house."

Villarreal's house used to belong to his grandparents. He said they probably planted the trees.

He said the loss of that sentimental value was just as important to him as seeing his property damaged.

"Now we'll have to plant new trees," he said.

In Rio Hondo, damage was anything but small. FM 106, which runs through the middle of town, was under several feet of water as of about noon Thursday. Cars were stranded in the middle of the road, as trucks and high-profile vehicles treaded the murky waters.

Uprooted trees and large branches littered neighborhood streets as residents attempted early cleanup efforts.

City officials said they were in the process of getting power restored before major cleanup can take place.

City Administrator Arturo Prida said damage assessments wouldn't be made just yet. He said that an AEP representative told him they were servicing about 240,000 homes in the Valley because of Dolly.

"A lot of people are anxious," said City Commissioner Polly Lozano. "A lot of people are out of power, sewage and have low water pressure. But safety (for our workers) is our top concern. We just ask people to remain calm and patient. And, for the most part, they have."