Disasters: The Wild One

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Sea of Confusion. Clearly, man had failed to cope with Beulah's floods as he had coped with Beulah. Vast manpower was assembled—including the crack, 600-man Fourth Army Task Force Bravo, which ran 16 field kitchens, two water-purification plants, two sanitation teams, three medical teams, and provided seven doctors and 21 nurses. In all, some 100,000 Government workers helped out as the total refugee swarm reached 300,000. Among the thousands of volunteers were legions of teenagers, who outworked their exhausted elders.

Nonetheless the fight to contain the flood drowned in a sea of confusion as turbid as the rolling Rio Grande. The U.S.-Mexican International Boundary and Water Commission consistently underestimated approaching crests, then quit predicting. Texas Governor Connally and Senator Ralph Yarborough engaged in some ugly bickering before eventually joining President Johnson in a flying tour of the stricken area. Although Mexicans dynamited their levees, sacrificing farmland to save downstream Matamoros, the U.S. levees above Harlingen were inexplicably left untouched. One valley police chief, who had asked for 1,000 soldiers and got none, summed it up: "I've stopped trying to get things done. I'm just taking orders from now on."

As the crest passed and fresh showers peppered the higher river reaches, Beulah's final shudders brought her back to the Gulf near Tampico, and she almost revived before a cold front administered the coup de grace. Looking at the battered 24-county area, the President put up an immediate $2,500,000 in disaster funds, and declared—to no one's surprise—that the lower valley needs another dam.. Even so, it will be years before the region recovers from the Rio Bravo's rampage.