Time for flooded residents to move

I’ve only been working in Hereford for a few months. To say that I’m a complete outsider is an understatement.
With that being said, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the plight of the people in the oft-flooded San Jose community.
A couple weeks ago – between floods – the Deaf Smith County Commissioners’ Court reviewed options to help the people there avoid being flooded in the first place. The options presented by an engineer from the Texas Department of Transportation basically included placing drains out of the playa lake and/or diverting water from the higher ground to the south away from the lake. Neither option was foolproof and all options were expensive.
From my perspective, the best, safest option is to move people out of harm’s way. I know that’s not an option residents there want to hear, but it is the most logical. Generations have grown up in those homes around the lake. Most everyone who lives there is elderly and/or poor.
Selling their homes and moving is not really an option – unless someone makes it one. As Judge Tom Simons said at the last commissioners’ meeting, it’s going to take some kind of a grant to make the change there that is necessary to save lives and property.
First of all, it has to be understood that the playa lake was there long before the area was inhabited. Nature deems that water will flow there. Engineering by TxDOT before the community was built reinforces that. The lake is the drainage point for U.S. Highway 385. It’s been that way since well before San Jose was established first as a migrant camp and later as an unincorporated community.
No matter how well drains are built and how much water is diverted, there will come a time again when the lake will overflow and creep into the homes surrounding it. The only way to avoid that is to move the homes. I’m not talking a forced relocation, but a voluntary one. Those who refuse to move would have to understand that the county would no longer come to their rescue when the water rises.
I’m no expert on the matter, but it seems to me that for the kind of money it would take to place drains and diversions, one could buy-up the affected properties and relocate residents into new mobile homes or manufactured homes on higher ground. That assumes, of course, that grant money could be found to do it, so the residents could be sparred an unaffordable expense.
One, it would give the residents a much safer and healthier environment in which to live. Two, it’s better for the natural ecology if there is minimal impact to it. Adding drains is not natural. Three, diverting water elsewhere only moves the problem; not solve it.
In my many treks into the community, I have been sickened by the conditions there. I can’t imagine that it is safe to live by the lake with all the filth, muck and disease that must infiltrate the place.
The homes along the lake have been flooded so many times that no matter how much the occupants clean them, there is going to be mold and other contaminants trapped within the walls. Razing them and restoring the land is about the best thing that can happen.
Many of the homes there remind me of what I saw in 1999 in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, when I went there on a mission trip to build houses after Hurricane Mitch. Only this isn’t a Third World country. This is Hereford, Texas, U.S.A., in the 21st century.
Granted, this is only my outsider’s view of the situation. But from what I see, it would be in everyone’s best interest to stop talking about draining the lake and to focus more on relocating residents. That’s an option where everyone wins.

Accountability update: This will be my last update for a while. My attempt to lose weight and get fit have failed so far. I just have not had the time to work out and diet alone won’t do the trick. I will report back again when there is something worthwhile to report.