Tijuana Prepares for Floods Ahead of El Nino Rains Jean Guerrero - KPBS.org
go to original December 15, 2015

In 1993, Maria del Estrada witnessed a nightmarish scene from her home’s second-floor window in Colonia Chula Vista, a low-income neighborhood in a Tijuana canyon called Pedrera.

She saw women drowning in violent brown water currents in the street in front of her house. Some held onto newborns. Cars, ovens, refrigerators and other debris floated beside Estrada’s drowning neighbors.

An upstream settling tank, meant to retain mud and trash in water flows, had become clogged and then erupted. This created a towering wave that gushed through Estrada’s neighborhood.

“It knocked down houses, and here there were 39 people dead,” Estrada said. “We heard them crying out for help, but who could help them?”

Cañon de la Pedrera is one of roughly 30 canyons in Tijuana prone to lethal flooding when it rains because steep hills move water into makeshift neighborhoods like Colonia Chula Vista, where houses are sometimes built with cheap materials such as corrugated tin, wooden planks and foundations of car tires. Loose dirt from the unpaved road in front of Estrada’s house slides into the nearest settling tank during rainfall.

Memories of the 1993 floods, which left thousands of people homeless, have moved Tijuana officials to make early preparations for El Niño, expected to bring heavy rains this month. Tijuana’s civil protection agency has been cleaning water infrastructure since August.

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