On Wednesday, February 4, 1998, José Tovar Serrano, 35, and his brother Rubén, 33, were killed in the torrential El Nino storm that began on the night of February 3. They were among the first known victims of the deluge that claimed a reported 15 lives in the Tijuana-Rosarito area.

Rubén Lopez Moreno (foreground) and Jorge Tovar at scene of mudslide, February 1998

Photo by Joe Klein

Ramón Andrade had known the brothers and their mother for years. A mechanic, Ramón fixes cars in the driveway of his house in Colonia Obrera, a block off the Periférico, the quasi-freeway that circles Tijuana. The Tovar brothers had lived a few minutes away, on the slopes of a hill in Colonia Lomas del Rubí.

Ramón agrees to take me to the brothers’ house, and as we drive to Lomas del Rubí, Ramón explains how the tragedy occurred. There had been, he says, a concrete retaining wall protecting a house 30 feet up the hill from the brothers’ house. This wall did not have sluice holes cut into its base that would have allowed mud and water to come through. “Without those holes,” Ramón says, “the pressure built up, and the wall and the mud collapsed on the men while they slept.”

Lomas del Rubí (Ruby Hills) is a small section of the larger Colonia El Rubí, located off Boulevard Fundadores, a few miles southwest of downtown Tijuana. Ramón turns onto a flat dirt road, which shortly gives way to a wide, paved street that runs up a steep hill. On the downgrade, after a block and a half, he cuts left into a narrow dirt road, lopsided and strewn with trash from the storms.

As we descend 50 yards into the canyon, Ramón casts a critical eye. “See that,” he shouts, and points to a half-finished culvert. “The city came and put that in but didn’t finish the job. I guess the engineers took the money.”

The area is typical of the dirt-poor neighborhoods that sprawl through the hills and valleys of Tijuana. Tiny houses, jammed together and leaning crazily in all directions, were evidently put up wherever and however those who laid claim, to the land could squeeze them in. But once the eye adjusts, a neighborhood comes into view, pounded by poverty but hanging tough.

One small dwelling on a corner sports a makeshift patio topped by a beach umbrella with the words “Hotel Del Coronado.” Another sprouts a satellite dish from its roof. “He can’t improve on his house,” Ramón notes, “but he has the money to get a satellite TV system.”

I point out to Ramón that he has parked in front of a fire hydrant. “It doesn’t matter. The fire department never gets up here. Nobody has phones, and if their house catches on fire, by the time they can run to a pay phone the house has burned down.”

We walk down a rutted dirt road into a canyon and take a right after two rock-filled streets. It seems a miracle that the Tovar brothers were the only reported deaths in Colonia El Rubí, with its many frail structures so perilously close to mounds of crumbling earth.

From Calle Constitución, the street on which the Tovars lived, the view to the southeast is spectacular — a wide vista of colonias framed against blue sky and green hills, stretching for miles, and in the background a tall peak the locals call Montana Flamingos. In Mexico, the wealthy and the middle-class prefer to live close to the center of town, leaving the beautiful hills, and their dangers, to the poor.

A stairway of old, dirt-filled automobile tires leads up to the house; yellow tape with the word “caution” in English, probably put up by the fire department, is draped over rocks and beams. On the way up we pass a half-finished cinder-block structure. The Tovar boys were building this for their mother, who lives next door. Once she and the rest of the family had moved into the cinder-block home, the brothers planned to move into the house she had vacated, which had survived the storm.

“Now it will never be completed,” says Ramón.

Only a few of the wood-frame supports still stand in the house in which the brothers died. Their home was about the size of a small motel room. Parts of twin beds on either side of the room are visible under piles of concrete, mud, and rocks.

José and Rubén must have enjoyed music. Several old portable stereos sit on a short steel shelving unit, and scattered over the floor are dozens of cassettes mixed with a few 8-tracks. I pick up a cassette a 1983 release by Echo and the Bunnymen.

Next to each bed, the family has placed a small cross, fashioned from house molding and spray-painted aqua. Near one of the crosses is a glass of water. Ramón explains that the family is originally from the state of Nayarit and that many people from that region retain an old custom: when a death occurs during a rainstorm, a glass of water is placed nearby for two weeks.

Three adults and a child emerge from the house next door, and an old woman greets Ramón. Maria del Carmen Serrano Ramírez, 62, is the mother of the flood victims. With her is her husband, Rubén, 63, who says nothing beyond a greeting, and Jorge, 38, the oldest of the three brothers. (The boys’ father died years ago in Nayarit.) Jorge lives with the family in the undamaged house. He is married, but his wife and children reside in Nayarit and he sends them money when he can. Mrs. Serrano’s daughter, also named Maria, and her child live in the house as well.

“In Mexico,” Ramón offered later, “if the older son gets married the younger ones are sort of obligated to stay single and help out the parents.” The younger Tovar boys were unmarried and supported the family with whatever day-labor construction jobs they could find in the city.

“The family was asleep on Tuesday night at around two in the morning when the wall broke,” says Mrs. Serrano. “We heard the noise, but we thought it was another wall farther away. Later, we got up and came out, but the neighbors were there already and kept us away. It was horrible. Horrible. I felt like I wanted to die too.” All she saw of her sons that night was a glimpse of the lower limbs of one of them.

After the wall collapsed, and in a driving rain, Mrs. Serrano’s daughter made her way up the hills to the paved street and a pay phone to call the fire department. They arrived quickly and dug the bodies out for transport to the morgue. “We saved a few of Rubén’s clothes,” Mrs. Serrano says. “From José, nothing. His side [of the room] is still covered with dirt.”

Maria del Carmen Serrano Ramírez with husband and son, February 1998

Photo by Joe Klein

The family had lived in Lomas del Rubí for about 13 years, and Mrs. Serrano says that her sons had paid the city for the land. No one in authority warned the residents of the dangers of the coming storm, she says, and no one from the city had come to assess the damage. She fears that when they do they will force her family to relocate. “We don’t want to move. We want to stay here. If they move us we’ll have to pay again for the land.”

She speaks with sadness but without bitterness or reproach. When I tell her that hard storms are predicted for several more months, she clasps her hands together, lowers her eyes, and quietly says a brief prayer.

The family has moved from their house, except for Jorge, who sleeps in what he says is a secure room near the front. “We live now with my brother in Colonia Obrera,” says Mrs. Serrano, “but we will return here when the rain stops. We all come here in the daytime. If we didn’t, the bad people would come to steal.” But she worries about what the family will do for money, now that the main breadwinners are gone.

Jorge speaks of the double funeral that was held in Colonia El Rubí. San Diego TV station Channel 51 came to film, as did Tijuana’s Channels 33 and 12, the latter briefly interviewing Mrs. Serrano. Jorge can’t recall any print media there.

Mrs. Serrano turns to look at the rubble that was her sons’ house. “They were very good boys. They supported the family. They were good boys.”