Couple rescues puppies after losing ‘everything’ to Hanna flooding in Mexico

A couple in northeastern Mexico rescued a bucket full of puppies floating down in floodwater.

MEXICO CITY - The aftermath of floods and storms often include devastating losses to several people. But when one couple in northeastern Mexico saw their puppies floating through the floodwater, they didn’t hesitate to wade through to get them.

Betty Vaquera Escandon shared a video of her parents floating a bucket of puppies through the floodwater in Reynosa, a city in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. Tropical Storm Hanna hit Mexico hard over the weekend, resulting in several deaths and disappearances.

Escandon said that her parents “lost everything” when heavy rainfall flooded their home, but luckily they managed to “get their babies out.”

“I [recorded the video] more than anything because it gave me a lot of emotion and tenderness to see my parents with all the puppies,” Escandon said.

Texas and Mexico both braced for calamity when Hanna hit on July 25 as a Category 1 hurricane. While it eventually weakened to a tropical storm, reports said that it left at least four people dead and six others missing after it swept through parts of Mexico.

In the aftermath of Hanna, which dumped up to 16 inches of rain in some parts of South Texas and Northern Mexico, officials reported two people died in the northern Mexican city of Ramos Arispe, near Monterrey, after torrents of water unleashed by Hanna swept their vehicle away. Three people were reported missing in Monterrey and three more were missing in the border city of Reynosa, across from McAllen, Texas, according to Mexico’s national civil defense office.

In the Mexican city of Matamoros, across from Brownsville, more than 1,300 asylum seekers, including newborns and elderly people, at a refugee camp braced for the impact of flooding from the Rio Grande due to Hanna. The river was expected to rise and likely flood the camp in the next few days.

Chloe Rastatter, a volunteer engineer at the camp, said United Nations representatives have been working with Mexican authorities to plan for the relocation of the migrants.

In the Mexican border city of Reynosa, a maternity hospital was damaged by heavy rain, with some patients moved to upper floors and others evacuated to other facilities, said Pedro Granados, director of civil protection for Tamaulipas state.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.