❒ Rain breaks away main road to community

Residents of the small community of Friday, located in the Comfort Castle area of the Rio Grande Valley, are now partially trapped in their community after heavy rains broke away the road leading into the community on Thursday.

The community, which has been having trouble with the road for about two years, has been receiving torrential rains since Wednes-day. In years gone by, the road has always broken away in heavy rains but the determined residents have always effected their own repairs.

Evadne Green, a resident of the community, explained that the break-away has severely affected them and has limited their movement. She said it has also placed residents in grave danger, as the alternate route out of the community involves walking along a perilous swing bridge that hangs over the churning waters of the Rio Grande.

She said, "It's been affecting us greatly. Today, I had to walk like 25 minutes to get to my car that was parked on the other side. The road is completely impassable. We have pregnant women living here, and I don't know what would happen if somebody got sick and needed to go to the hospital. The other route, through Cornwall Barracks, is along a precipice and there is a little swing bridge. It is very dangerous, especially for the school children."

Green and the other residents are now forced to walk a great distance to meet cars that terminate their journey at the point where the breakaway starts.

Josh Hunter, a peace corp worker stationed in Comfort Castle for the last year and a half, also expressed concern at the state of the road. " This has been going on for some time now. Some time ago, there was a landslide and the road collapsed. It collapsed again last year and the community rebuilt it. They just started doing work recently and then we started getting rains."

The residents say they are waiting on the authorities to come to their rescue and say they need to hear from them soon.

Attempts to contact a representative from the National Works Agency were unsuccessful.