The San Juan Cosala flood

Yesterday morning I awoke and noticed that there was no traffic on the carretera (highway) which runs by my San Juan Cosala camp on the lake side. There was an auto bus, a taxi and several cars stopped and a river of water and mud running down the carretera east towards the balneario (hot spring bath facility). It had been raining all night but it was not when I got up. I went down to the front of the property and took some pictures of the flooded carretera.

Soon several back hoes and large dump trucks arrived and began to clean up the mud. About a half a block west of my camp is an arroyo that goes under a small bridge on the carretera. The passage under the bridge must have been blocked and the water diverted on to the carretera. A police pick up arrived and two big trucks of Mexican soldiers. I decided to walk up to the arroyo bridge to see what was happening and take some more pictures. One of the workers told me that a car had been swept into the arroyo.

The police and soldiers did not stop me as I waded through the mud and water that was a foot and a half deep in some places. At the arroyo bridge a large machine was scooping mud, rocks, trees and debris out of the arroyo to clear it and allow the water to take its usual course under the bridge and down into Lake Chapala. A huge mound of rocks and debris about 30 feet high blocked the carretera on the east side of the arroyo bridge and a couple smaller piles of debris blocked the west side. There were also parts of the car that had been blocking the arroyo but the parts were now about 3 feet in size. The largest part was a tire and an aluminum wheel so the destroyed car must have been a new car.

I took some pictures of the work and stayed and watched for awhile. On the mountain you could see water running down the gulches and arroyos. Behind my camp you can see a waterfall with a drop of about 75 feet. Then I returned to my camp thinking I would write about the flood for this blog. After I got cleaned up, I tried to transfer the pictures from my camera to my Vaio laptop. Much to my dismay, all the pictures were lost as the smart media in the camera had some how lost its formatting. I re-formatted the media and took some test pictures and the camera seemed well again and functioning correctly.

For a couple weeks I had been looking forward to a party in the afternoon at 5 PM. It was a birthday party for several different friends that share September birthdays. By 3 PM work was still going on for the flood clean up and the carretera was still closed to traffic. I decided to walk down to the balneario and hitch a ride or call a taxi at the hotel. I got a ride right away by hitching and went to the El Barco bar near the Pemex station in Ajijic for a cold Corona before going to the party near there at 5 PM.

The party was held in a beautiful Mexican house with a large garden. Several friends were already there when I arrived. The food for the party was catered by Vicki’s Hideaway and was very good. You didn’t even need to go get drinks as some of Vicki’s help came around with platters of finger food and took drink orders. Later on live music was provided by the local band, Noe and the Classics who played mainly old rock and roll songs by Santana, Elvis, Beatles and the Eagles. The party guests had a good time dancing to the music.

I took several more pictures at the party. I left about 9 PM to go to the Ajijic plaza to get a taxi back to San Juan Cosala. I asked an auto bus driver if he was going to San Juan but the road was still not open for buses. I took a taxi and got off near the balneario and walked on the muddy carretera back to my camp.

When I got back to the rig, I tried once again to transfer my pictures but again the formatting and all the party pictures were lost. Maybe the media card is bad and needs to be replaced.

This morning it looks like the carretera has one lane open over the arroyo bridge. It is still very muddy but traffic is going by slowly. I haven’t seen the TV news but I have heard that one house in the exclusive Raquet Club lost its foundation and slid into another house. I have been told that several people in San Juan Cosala died and some are still missing.