The city of Edinburg learned a valuable lesson in communication under the time of a natural disaster.
Thursday night the city was left without power for many hours in some areas, but city officials said street lights were up and running roads were re-opened the very next day.
With clear skies and the sun shining brightly over Edinburg Friday, there was hardly any indication that Thusday night many city streets were flooded as a thunderstorm passed through Hidalgo County.
Public Works Director Ponciano Longoria said the heavy rains not only caused some streets to overflow with water, but left the city without electricity.
For at least three hours, that made things hard for city leaders to communicate during the storm.
"Our mobile phone went out so we went to our second form of communication which is our radios- talk radios." said Longoria.
Longoria said many street lights went out due to the power outages.
In response, the city sent out crews to those intersections affected to put up stop signs in efforts to prevent a major accident.
"The worst problem for us was the traffic signals,” said Longoria. “Making sure that the safety of the traffic of the residents going through the city they were able to stop.”
The storm piled up inches of water, but thanks to continued efforts to keep drainages, ditches and canals clean, there were hardly traces of the flood waters come Friday morning
Longoria said the city was lucky to escape the storm with little damage and along the way, officials learned a good lesson.
"Communication is one of the most important aspects of organizing everything" said Longoria.
And looking towards hurricane season, Longoria said Thursday night's natural disaster should've been a reminder to citizens that they should always keep their battery powered electronics handy.
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