A contingent of firefighters and first responders from Mexico arrived in Texas over the weekend to aid in search and rescue efforts following the devastating flooding of the Guadalupe River in a show of solidarity with their northern neighbors.
“When it comes to firefighters, there’s no borders,” Ismael Aldaba, founder of Fundación 911, in Acuña, Mexico, told CNN on Tuesday. “There’s nothing that’ll avoid us from helping another firefighter, another family. It doesn’t matter where we’re at in the world. That’s the whole point of our discipline and what we do.”
They represent one of a handful of volunteer groups, including highly skilled search and rescue teams from California, that have traveled to Texas after the flooding which is being described as one of the US’s deadliest floods in decades. Dozens of people are still missing.
Under the command of Mountain Home fire department and Texas state police, Fundación 911 is assisting along the Guadalupe River and coordinating to bring in reinforcements equipped with search and rescue canines from the Mexican state of Nuevo León.
The team of 13 hails from just across the US-Mexico border from the Texas counties most severely affected by the flooding, and has practice responding to crises in flood zones along the Rio Grande River.
The arrival of the international team comes amid tensions along the US-Mexico border over the Trump administration’s sweeping crackdown on immigration. But the message expressed by the firefighters this week has been one of unity.
One of the volunteers, José Omar Llanas Hernández, told CBS News he feels immense pride in being able to serve communities and aid in rescues in any country.
His colleague, Jesús Gomez, who is a dual citizen of the US and Mexico, told the outlet: “There’s a bunch of firefighters that have visas and we were like: ‘Let’s just go and help.’”
“Sometimes people from the other side cross and help us,” he added. “It’s time to give a little bit.”
Aldaba said that locals in Texas had been “welcoming to our team from Mexico”.
In a social media post on Monday, the US ambassador to Mexico, Ronald Johnson, thanked the Mexican teams for their efforts. “The United States and Mexico are united, not only as neighbors but as family, especially in times of need,” he said.
In January, firefighters from Mexico traveled to California to help battle the Los Angeles area wildfires.
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Also on Monday, Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum applauded the work of two Mexicans who survived the flooding in Texas, and saved at least 20 girls. Silvana Garza Valdez and María Paula Zárate were working as camp counsellors at Camp Mystic, the Christian all-girls summer camp where at least 27 campers and counselors were killed in the flood waters, when the Guadalupe River began to flood.
“We started writing their names, we put their badges on them, we told them to pack a bag with their things, with what they needed most, and if they had their favorite animal, to bring it,” Zárate told the Mexican news outlet N Mas in a Spanish-language interview.
Aldaba, the leader of the team of Mexican firefighters, says the first responders have “received a lot of love” from their US colleagues.
“We appreciate all the other guys that are here from different fire departments in Texas,” she told CNN. “Our team has been prepared in disasters. They’ve been to different disasters around the world. We decided to come and help our friends and try to make this a little easier for them. What we found here has been incredible.”