Presidio levee breach

PRESIDIO The swelling Rio Grande flowed over a levee Wednesday, sending water cascading onto a golf course and some ranch land in this dusty-turned-muddy West Texas border town.

The levee had not failed, said Presidio County Attorney Rod Ponton, but an area on the eastern end of Presidio was turned into a chocolate-brown reservoir marked by partially submerged trees, bushes and power lines.

A levee broke across the Rio Grande in neighboring Ojinaga, Chihuahua, Mexico, where Presidio Mayor Lorenzo Hernandez said homes and other buildings have been inundated with up to 10 feet of water.

Officials in Presidio, a town of 5,000 people about 250 miles down river from El Paso, have been watching the Rio Grande for nearly two weeks. Heavy rains and water releases from the flood-swollen Luis Leon Reservoir in Mexico pushed the Rio Grande over its banks, filling wide channels between the earthen levees on both sides of the border.

By late Wednesday morning the river level had dropped slightly, and Presidio officials were being told that water releases from the Luis Leon had been slowed, Ponton said. But he added that the city could remain threatened for several days.

"These levees are not designed to be dams," Ponton said. "The water pressure could find a weakness."

Low-lying parts of Presidio are under mandatory evacuation, but schools remain open even as the elementary serves as a temporary shelter for about 80 displaced residents.

Ponton said if the levee does break, low-lying parts of the city, including hundreds of homes, would be gradually swamped.

"If it does go, it could be the same effect as in Ojinaga," Ponton said. "But we're just talking about water gradually rising up ... making homes uninhabitable and roads impassable. It would rise slow enough that people would be able to leave."

Presidio City Administrator Cynthia Clarke said none of the evacuated homes on the east side of the city were immediately threatened, but the 12 to 15 feet of water covering the golf course could reach several nearby homes by Wednesday night.

Meanwhile, the international bridge on the west end of the town remained closed as the Rio Chonchos remained well above flood stage.

"We got water coming east and we got water coming west," Clarke said with an uneasy laugh.

The flood threat had prompted officials in Presidio to go door-to-door urging people to leave. They made the same plea from a helicopter. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials also shut down the international bridge connecting Presidio to Ojinaga.

Earlier this week, officials said the evacuation affected about 500 people in the Presidio area.

Presidio Police Chief Marco Baeza said a few older residents living in low-lying areas have opted to stay.

"One said, ‘I've been here 58 years and nothing's happened before and nothing's going to happen now,"‘ Baeza said.

The recent rains and flooding aren't related to Hurricane Ike, which hit hundreds of miles to the east.

The Associated Press and OA staff writer Doug Carman contributed to this report.

IF YOU GO

>> Actually, don't go. The International Bridge at Presidio is closed.

>> The international bridge on Highway 67 has been closed, along with customs facilities and the port of entry on both sides of the bridge, due to flooding on the Rio Grande caused by releases from rain-swollen dams on the upper Rio Concho in Mexico, the Texas Department of Transportation reported Wednesday.