Looking Back with Freddie Mac: Flood of 98 Part 1

HOWDY
The other day I was walking in my neighborhood and I witnessed something that I just could not understand or believe.
There was an elderly lady trying to hang clothes and she was having a really rough time. Later speaking to her son, he told me she is in her seventies, with a heart condition and real bad problems with her legs and it is hard for her to walk without a walker. She left the walker inside so that she could carry the clothes basket. She fell down and was asking for help. Dalinda and I went to help her and I noticed that not fifty feet away were three young men that looked to be in their twenties.
I ask them if they had not heard the lady asking for help and they said they did but they ignored it because they do not like her son. Now here is my question. Have we become a society that will let things like that stop helping someone that needs help?
The flood of 98 came to mind where during that time I saw so many people helping other people because they needed help. When I walked out my front door and saw that the water was two feet deep and was up to my front porch I began to worry. I heard my neighbor ask for help because the water was so deep in his yard that it was running into the house. The reason he was asking for help was because the water was so deep in his back yard that his dogs that were tied to a tree were drowning.
We were able to save his dogs. Inside we stacked up the furniture the best we could to save as much as we could.
At that time, I was still teaching vocational at the Del Rio high school and we were told to go to a meeting at the high school with MR. ROBERTO BOBBY FERNANDEZ. He told us all to go out into our neighborhood and help anyone that needed help. My son Michael was 13 years old and he went with me and we would go and pick up cases of water and drive through the streets of San Felipe and give out water.
We also helped the red cross deliver food to the area. No matter where you would go you would see someone helping someone. I know the flood was horrible but it brought people together and that is the way I wish it was today.
It is sad to say but a lot of people now days when you ask them for help they want to know how much can you pay. The destruction that flood Charlie caused is still visible today. There are so many stories to be told about people that put their own life in danger to help someone else.
Speaking to Victor Camposano he told me that he also would go and pick up cases of water and deliver them to any one that need it. Victor also told me about MR. DUB WHITEHEAD who lived on the curve just before you crossed the creek they called Los Patos. Victor said that the people from the Cienegas area would walk across the rail road bridge and go to Mr. Whitehead house and get water from his water well. He did that until the well went dry.
If you knew MR. WHITEHEAD then you knew he was a good hearted Christian man and always tried to help other people.
I was told that people were allowing people to get water out of there swimming pool so that it could be used to flush the toilets. Victor told me later on that he was over at the San Felipe creek area behind the San Felipe lions club and found a pair of scissors that were completely stuck through a tree. Can you imagine the force of the water to do something like that?
I realize now that this has two be a two or three-part article to be able to cover some of the things I have heard from people about what they did to save family friends and even strangers and countless lives. Next month I will continue with the flood of 98 and tell the story of the Hernandez family and all they did to save people from drowning.
In closing let me say if you see someone or know someone that needs help don’t hesitate help them out of the goodness of your heart and not for what you can get from them. GOD bless and remember be proud that you live in my hometown Del Rio Texas. Thanks to the Val Verde County Library and Victor Cirilo.