EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Health officials in El Paso and in Juarez, Mexico, are urging residents to take precautions as temperatures will remain in the triple digits the next few days.
El Paso County designated several community centers as “cooling centers” where people are urged to take advantage of indoor air-conditioning from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Juarez extended the same invitation to residents of 28 neighborhoods, many located in working class areas where not all homes have swamp coolers.
Some of those residents, however, say they cannot go there for lack of transportation. Others who live in the most arid outskirts of Juarez say they don’t even have water.
“(The heat) is too strong. (My baby) feels the heat, the fever. Sometimes there is no water to bathe her,” said Alondra Lazalde, a resident of Los Kilometros in south Juarez. “Everything is so far from us, and the trucks that bring the water charge too much. If we have a bucket of water, she can bathe there.”
Officials in Juarez told Border Report news partner ProVideo a cluster of neighborhoods collectively known as Los Kilometros were never meant to be developed for human habitation. Squatters settled in land meant for future industrial, farming and commercial use decades ago.
People have been selling “possession” of lots they don’t legally own and their crudely built dwellings for generations, they said. The local water utility sends tank trucks to those neighborhoods for humanitarian reasons.
The residents say two tank trucks drive by once a week to funnel water into plastic containers outside the homes.
“They want to supply water with two trucks. That’s not enough. They need to bring more trucks or get water pipes into our homes once and for all,” said Juan Aguirre, an 83-year-old resident of Los Kilometros.
He said neighbors often must choose between using what little water they have for drinking and cooking or for washing and bathing.
“We don’t bathe when there’s no water. If you don’t like to bathe, this is the place to be,” Aguirre joked. “The (dogs), you give them a cup of water and they curl up in the shade the rest of the day. […] Trees? I can’t have trees; they die for lack of water.”
Standing next to a white water-storage cube, Guadalupe Cabrera said her extended family relies on a neighbor’s pickup to occasionally ferry water they purchase from developed areas of south Juarez.
“I would like the authorities to find a solution because there are a lot of children here and water is badly needed here, especially in summer,” she said. The kids “get sick, they even get fever because of the heat. Many people don’t have money to take them to the doctor; if they had water, they could at least bathe them and lower their temperature a little.”
She said salespeople are still trying to get families to buy “residential” lots in the desert. Their lure? 2,000 free liters of water.
A few miles to the north and seemingly a world away, Raul Chavez took his family to a water park in Juarez where patrons brought in coolers, umbrellas, folding chairs and sunscreen lotion.
“It does feel like the heat will be harsh this year,” Chavez said, with his son Joseph by his side during a family outing as laughter and the splash of water could be heard in the background.
(ProVideo in Juarez, Mexico, contributed to this report.)
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