Crews work to keep flood waters out of Presidio

PRESIDIO, Texas (AP) - Crews worked Friday to throw up makeshift dams after a levee break weakened this normally dusty West Texas border town's defenses against the swollen Rio Grande.

About 150 inmates brought in from low-security facilities elsewhere in West Texas filled rotund sandbags about as tall as tractor tires that were to be carried to the base of a railroad trestle using helicopters sent by Gov. Rick Perry's office. The CH-47 helicopters were scheduled to arrive Friday morning.

Rio Grande levels appeared lower Friday, and residents reported that water was receding a day after creeping toward populated areas of Presidio from a levee break on the eastern edge of the town of 5,000 people about 250 miles down river from El Paso.

"The good news on the river is that levels seem to have stabilized," said Presidio County Attorney Rod Ponton. "We don't know why that happened, but we're happy."

But the town is far from in the clear after two weeks of watching the river that divides it from Ojinaga, Mexico. The Rio Grande has been on the rise because of heavy rains and the forced release of water from the flood-stricken Luis Leon Reservoir in Mexico.

The situation prompted Perry to issue a disaster declaration Thursday night. He also asked for a presidential disaster declaration for Presidio County.

"This situation poses an immediate danger to the residents of Presidio," the governor said in a statement.

Crews were using 20,000 to 30,000 small sandbags to fortify the base of a 1,300-foot stretch of railroad tracks. The trestle closest to the levee breach was getting the large sandbags being prepared Friday, and two other trestles were getting dirt and sandbags to help stem the flow of water.

In Ojinaga, hundreds of homes were flooded after the Rio Conchos jumped its banks and the "El Granero" dam overflowed, said Isaac Olivas, director of the Chihuahua state Civil Protection. Floodwaters reached 13 feet in some parts of the town.

He said 300 families had been evacuated over the weekend, and no one was hurt. Olivas said there were no breaches in any of the dams on Mexico's side of the border.

In Presidio, farmer Terry Bishop has spent the better part of a week watching the river, only to see it crest above a levee near his family's golf course Tuesday. Since then, he's seen the murky waters envelop the 18-hole course and his 300 acres of soy and castor bean crops.

"At first it was slow, just barely coming over," Bishop said Thursday as he drove through the desert to survey another stretch of the levee. "We were hoping it would go down ... but that didn't happen."

Bishop said he doesn't remember ever seeing the river so high.

"Normally there are places you could wade across, or where you could hop across without your feet getting wet," Bishop said of the Rio Grande above the point where the Rio Conches flows into the river.

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Associated Press writer Marina Montemayor reported from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.