The 1954 Pecos Flood

The highway bridge that carries US 90 over the Pecos River replaced one the river destroyed. In late June 1954 the remains of Hurricane Alice stalled over the Pecos drainage and dropped as much as twenty eight inches of rain on ground that could absorb almost none of it. The water came down the canyon as a wall. The gauge near Comstock read ninety six feet, which was fifty eight feet higher than anything ever recorded there, the previous maximum having stood at thirty eight feet since 1932. It took out the bridge. A car had stalled on the deck; the driver had walked his family across to safety and gone back to try to start it when the span went. His body was never found. Downstream it was worse. At Piedras Negras half the buildings in a town of thirty five thousand were destroyed and more than two hundred people died, and at Ciudad Acuna ten thousand were evacuated. It was the largest rise on the Rio Grande since 1865. A treaty signed in 1944 had already committed the two countries to building dams on this river, but it was 1954 that finally moved Amistad from a plan to a project; it was authorised in 1960, dedicated in 1969, and stands twenty five miles downstream of the Pecos confluence. The replacement bridge opened in 1957. It carries the road two hundred and seventy three feet above the water, and it is still the highest highway bridge in Texas.