Relief Pours In for Tijuana Flood Victims

Volunteers at La Casa del Mexicano worked through the rain last week to fill trucks with food, medicine, bottled water and clothes for victims of Tijuana’s floods and mudslides.

A spontaneous relief effort also sprung up at Brooklyn Avenue and Soto Street, where women gave diapers from their own supplies and jackets off their backs to help residents of the Mexican border city.

Donated trucks throughout the Eastside were loaded with food and supplies from churches, community centers and neighborhoods as word spread of the disaster that has killed at least 14 and left thousands homeless.

“One lady gave her jacket and here it was raining,” said Kathy Riboli, who owns the San Antonio Winery restaurant in Lincoln Heights. “It was such a feeling to see that, I cannot tell you.”

Workers from her restaurant drove trucks to Tijuana after gathering baby food from a Gerber distributor, pasta from another supplier and bottled water, juice and food from the street corner relief center.

City Councilman Richard Alatorre and Genesis, a nonprofit organization, sent a truckload of 1,000 blankets and thousands of pants, dresses, sweaters and shoes to Tijuana.

Church of the Resurrection, 3324 E. Opal St., took trucks full of food and supplies to Tijuana every day last week, said worker Mila Llamas. The supplies were gathered from the congregation as well as other area Catholic churches.

At La Casa del Mexicano, Pedro Flores and his 11-year-old son, Abraham, packed supplies into trucks. Flores also traveled to the border and delivered the goods to the colonias in the canyons outside Tijuana, where he and other volunteers were delayed by Mexican government requirements.

“The government is waiting for (us) to take the supplies to the warehouse, but the real need is for the people who live in the canyons,” he said.

One of the areas he delivered relief to was Colonia Durango, a squatters camp built by families who fled the 1985 Mexico City earthquake.

“This is one of the problems there, the colonias of people from throughout Mexico and Central America. Their houses are in canyons and riverbeds” where rain water accumulates, Flores said.

But he was also heartened after seeing poor people from Santa Ana and throughout Los Angeles travel to the Casa to give what they have for the effort.

“They hear (about) it on the radio and come with clothing and food,” he said. “It’s the same people (they are helping), almost all Latinos. It is the poor people who are giving.”

Organizers are asking for donations of medicine, food, bottled water, baby food and disposable diapers, but they do not need more clothing at this time.

Information: La Casa del Mexicano, 2900 Calle Pedro Infante at (213) 267-8527.