MISSION, Texas (ValleyCentral) — Many people experienced high water across the Rio Grande Valley early Tuesday morning. City of Mission firefighters saved at least eight people from the high water while overcoming challenges.
Mission Assistant Fire Chief Robert Alvarez, who is also the Emergency Management Coordinator, said they had to use their high-profile truck to pull people to safety.
“We had to deploy one of our high-profile vehicles with our personnel to go and evacuate some citizens who were requesting to be evacuated from the residence due to the rising water and then we also had to experience some vehicles that had driven into high water, and those people needed to be rescued from the vehicles,” said Alvarez.
He said gratefully no one was injured despite facing a big obstacle in their rescue efforts.
“It’s always harder when it’s at night and last night it happened overnight, so the element of not being able to see everything and then the heavy rain and the wind just makes it very difficult for our rescuers,” said Alvarez.
Alvarez said their annual training ‘Flood Awareness Class’ helped the firefighters handle floodwaters.
“It’s going to allow our personnel to know what equipment they should use if they need to use some of the specialized equipment, such as a rope bag, and have experience in operating around floodwaters,” said Alvarez.
He added everyone needs to be careful and stay off the roads when severe weather moves through the area.
“It’s very important that, if possible, they remain off the roadways. I know sometimes you just have to go out or you are already on the road when a storm comes through.” But Alvarez goes on to say “but it is important to try and stay off the roadways and if you do see high water do not drive through it.”
