Hundreds of orange buoys swept down the flooded Rio Grande during last week\u2019s heavy rain, forcing Eagle Pass\u2019 international bridges to temporarily shut down as the floating barriers moved downriver.<\/p>\n
On the Mexican side of the river, people lined the riverbank to watch the buoys pass. One person warned that fast-moving river debris can damage infrastructure, saying, \u201cDue to the river’s movement and the speed, when it hits, it can weaken the columns.\u201d<\/p>\n
Downriver, the governor\u2019s office confirmed the buoys Texas built were still in place. But last Friday morning, federal buoys could be seen passing the Texas buoys. By Friday afternoon, the water was starting to pull the Texas buoys from the riverbed.<\/p>\n
Rep. Henry Cuellar said the Department of Homeland Security assured him months ago that the buoys would be secure in a flood. \u201cHere we are, a few months later. What they said exactly happened,\u201d Cuellar said.<\/p>\n
Cuellar called the situation \u201can embarrassing situation,\u201d adding, \u201cYou know, to the contractors and the folks working on this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cuellar also said contractors were warned about rising floodwaters but did not move the buoys in time. \u201cApparently, they didn’t listen to the local folks, and that’s the problem with, you know, the contractors and the DHS, they need to listen more to the local officials,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Asked whether contractors should face repercussions, Cuellar said, \u201cWell, you know, absolutely. You know, they should answer why they did not move the buoys to a safer place.\u201d<\/p>\n
The federal government spent hundreds of millions of dollars on buoys along the border. Questions remain about what impact loose buoys could have on the environment, whether there will be any ramifications for buoys that ended up on the Mexico side of the river, and whether anyone will be held legally responsible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hundreds of orange buoys swept down the flooded Rio Grande during last week\u2019s heavy rain, forcing Eagle Pass\u2019…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":379242,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[82,84,83],"class_list":["post-379241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}