Huracan Gilverto

gilbert GILBERTO
. Nobody expected it, and how, if 21 years ago there was a single warning system on natural phenomena, and although the population and the urban infrastructure of Saltillo were so small, distant thought the idea that it could be hit by a hurricane.
But he came. It was the morning of September 17 that the heavy rainfall that left "Gilberto" on the Sierra de Arteaga and runoffcaused flooding in the city and house collapses, killing five people and nearly a thousand more left homeless.
More than two decades away the memories come, but changes also believes Marco Antonio Hernandez Mireles, fire chief in Saltillo, because now no way to provide faster relief, but against nature recognizes that little can do, and it showed that was considered the worst tragedy that hastouched live.
And is that "Gilberto" hit the city with a force ever imaginable, in fact, is not yet known how much rain fell in the city because there was no way of measuring it, but by 4:00 pm that day, Hurricane, considered the most destructive of the 20th century and was described as a "murderer" in Coahuila lands impelled maximum sustained winds of 167 kilometers per hour and gusts of up to 194,and his eye was now 37 miles wide.
In fact, this was what caused the flood, as the eye of the hurricane passed over the Sierra Madre Oriental and the havoc caused in Monterrey and Tamaulipas, where rainfall was recorded more than 330 millimeters.
Rose water ... and problems

Although at the time there were many colonies as at present, problems arose as the water level rose and exceeded thenormal course of the rivers of the Southeast Region.
"The rain started when parade on September 16, it was early, but it was not until the first few minutes the next day when we started getting reports of help in different corporations: fallen trees, cars stranded, floods, demolished houses; in short, a mess for which we were not prepared, "he recalls.
He adds that at the dawn of September 17 beganto assess the damage, the growing in streams during flooding, a disaster, but the saddest thing was the loss of human lives, including Michelangelo Gaytan Medina, who at age 19 was working as Red Cross paramedic.
"The ambulance in which he was stood where before there was a bridge there in the jets, and the same humidity was taking the road. He went to render aid to an accident and the ambulancecame a pregnant woman was also killed, "said Oscar Alejandro Rodriguez, coordinator today worthy institution paramedics, who like his teammates know the history of one of the main examples what is "die in the line of duty."
The woman was identified as Josephine Stripes, whose body was found days later in the stream of Tortola, miles away from where the ambulance dropped to empty the roadcollapse.

Others who perished, and those who realized the media at the time, were Cabriales Facundo Torres and Arturo Cardenas Rodriguez, whose bodies were also located several miles from where they disappeared. Another person was never found.
"It was so shocking place that had waterfalls rainwater leaving the San Lorenzo Canyon itself," he adds.

Millionaires damaged roads

The damage in theregion were considerable, in fact, almost at noon on the 17 September, and when the rain had ceased crashing because the natural phenomenon with the saw almost lost his strength, gave authorities know that require an investment of 6000 pesos 500 million for the reconstruction of Highway 57, the Saltillo-Monterrey and other roads affected.
And is that a few hours after the city began runoff became ahuge chaos distress calls everywhere Hernandez Mireles recalled.
They were houses that had collapsed, as in the city center, and in the periphery of colonies that were just then Lomas de Lourdes, south, and east of Aurora City, where homes and failed to withstand moisture, many of them built with adobe.
"While it rained something in the city, the most critical is what we live in areas like...