Rescue teams continue to search the banks of the Guadalupe River in central Texas as more than 160 people are still missing following last week’s flash floods, which have killed more than 100 people, according to authorities in Texas.
Folks from around the world have gathered to aid the devastated community, including Mexican volunteers from Fundación 911 who crossed the border into Texas to help with relief efforts.
Ismael Aldaba, president of Fundación 911, said the group arrived Sunday morning after getting a call for help from a local fire department. So far, Aldaba said the search team has not rescued anyone who is alive.
“ It looks like a bomb exploded,” Aldaba said. “There’s trees that are huge laying down on their side. There’s many that are snapped in half. A lot, a lot of damage.”
4 questions with Ismael Aldaba
Have you been able to successfully recover any bodies?
“Yes, we have. We’ve been working closely with our search team, which has guys from the local sheriffs of Kerr County, which is coordinating with our fire chief from Mountain Home Fire Department, our Mexico team, state police. So we’ve got quite a bit of a search team with assisting them in identifying or removing and finding some bodies.”
In the past, your organization has recovered bodies that floated down the river into Mexico. How does that assist with the work you’re doing now?
“We work closely with the Ciudad Acuña Mexico Fire Department, which is where our guys are coming from, and we’ve been in close contact with them. When it comes to a search and rescue operation or a recovery, sometimes the local sheriff will call our foundation to see if our guys are available to assist or if there’s some type of communication between U.S. authorities and Mexico authorities, and they refer some of that help to us.
“There has been a lot of recoveries. This team that’s on the ground now has recovered over the past year and a half, over a hundred recoveries on the U.S.-Mexico border. So this is not new.”
How has your team been received in Texas?
“They’ve been very welcoming from this area, from Mountain Home, from Kerrville, from Ingram. They’re making sure we have everything we need, getting the proper meals and rest, and so on.”
It’s been a few days since the floods started. What is your team doing on the ground now?
“Today, we’ve slept — and this is the full team — maybe two hours last night. We tried to get as much as rest as we can. Right now, I am in the command center, which I have communication with my team. I have three teams that have split up there. Some are searching near the water, others are searching within the rubble. There’s another team on the other side of the riverbank, so they’re spread out along with the local fire department and local authorities. So we’re hoping to cover more ground today.
“I’m within the floodplain. There’s trees that are laying down on the side. We have a house that’s fully destroyed to the left. The creek bed is just full of rubble. There’s cars that are still upside down here. Just a lot of damage everywhere.”
This interview was edited for clarity.
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James Perkins Mastromarino produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Catherine Welch. Grace Griffin produced it for the web.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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