The rainy season has kicked in with a vengeance, judging from the recent storms that have ripped through metro Guadalajara and its environs.
As of Thursday, July 18, four fatalities in Jalisco had been confirmed as a result of the torrential rains and flash floods. Firefighters are searching for two others — a man and a woman in their 60s — reported missing after their car was swept away by a fierce current in Tlajomulco on Sunday, July 15.
Early this week, rescue teams retrieved the body of a 17-year-old girl who disappeared during a July 10 storm, when the car she was driving was dragged down a fast-flowing rainwater channel.
Reports said onlookers watched in horror as Paola struggled to maneuver her vehicle across the flooded intersection at Río Azares and Camino Nacional, in the Santa Ana Tepetitlán neighborhood of Zapopan. The strong current pulled the car into the channel and pulled it a short distance to a bridge at Dr. Mateo del Regil and Villa Caracol. By the time a rescue team reached the car, Paola had disappeared.
Her lifeless body was discovered four days later floating at Camino al Tajo in Tlaquepaque, in the La Gigantera neighborhood.
The Guadalajara metro area has 380 points where recurrent flooding occurs, according to the Metropolitan Planning Institute. These locations include 172 in Zapopan, 73 in Guadalajara, 42 in Tlajomulco, 33 in Tlaquepaque, 15 in Tonalá, nine in El Salto, eight in Ixtlahuacán, four in Juanacatlán, and four in Zapotlanejo.
For more information and to see exactly where these points are located and their historic levels of flooding, check the map at sigmetro.imeplan.mx/mapa. First, select “Subsistema de Gestión del Riesgo y Resiliencia” (on the left-hand side menu), followed by “Instrumentos,” “Mapas temáticos” and “Inundaciones.”