A rain-packed tropical depression slammed into the Texas-Mexico border region today, posing a new threat to cities already struggling with floods along the Rio Grande and its tributaries, AP reported. Police in Laredo were evacuating people in low-lying areas as the rain-swollen Rio Grande rose to more than 30 feet (9.1 meters) above flood stage and forced closure of two bridges linking Mexico and the U.S. Early reports indicated only minor flooding in homes near the Rio Grande, but the water was still rising near downtown, where the river was to crest Thursday evening. Tens of thousands of people already had been forced from their homes in Mexican towns as officials dumped torrents of water into flood-swollen rivers to avoid the risk of dams overflowing out of control due to last week's Hurricane Alex and its aftermath. Humberto Moreira, the governor of the border state of Coahuila, said that more than 20,000 homes had been flooded in his state alone, and about 80,000 people had «lost all of their furniture.» Gov. Eugenio Hernandez of the border state of Tamaulipas reported the first fatality there, telling an emergency evaluation meeting attended by President Felipe Calderon in the border city of Matamoros that the victim tried to cross a flooded road. Hernandez said «now comes the part that has us worried, which is the rise in the level of river.» The tropical depression made landfall at South Padre Island late Thursday morning and is expected to dump four to eight inches (10 centimeters to 20 centimeters) of rain across the area, with as much as 10 inches (25 centimeters) in some parts, said the National Weather Service. That rain comes on top of the more than five inches (12.5 centimeters) that Hurricane Alex deposited last week. The rain, saturated ground, swollen rivers and releases from dams upstream have experts watching the Rio Grande closely.
