La Feria community says debris from flood still not picked up

LA FERIA, Texas (ValleyCentral) — Nearly four weeks after devastating floods swept the Rio Grande Valley, one La Feria community is wondering how long they'll have to live with flood debris on their property.

Nearly every mobile home in the Green Bay South Community has piles of debris and trash lined along its curb. Filled with damaged air ducts, furniture, and all the remnants from the bottom of their homes, the trash has become an issue for the senior residents who live there.

_{Debris from the March 26, 2025 storm still sits on a local RV neighborhood four weeks after the flood.}

"It's been this way now for four weeks and the county is supposed to pick it up," Tom Lafferty said. "I guess when they get to it, they'll get to it, but with all this stuff lying around and everything, we got people rummaging through it, we got people coming in from outside and it would just be nice if we could get it picked up."

Tom Lafferty moved to the 55-plus mobile home park back in 2016. He said he's gone through three floods since then, but none have been as bad as the one that occurred on March 26-28.

The La Feria community sits on Cameron County roads, meaning the county is responsible for picking up the debris. Cameron County began its debris pickup and removal efforts on April 3.

The residents say they've reached out to the county to get a timeline on when their neighborhood will be serviced, but they're still not sure when that day will be.

It's become a health concern for Lafferty and his neighbors.

"It's the visual issue — we don't want to look at it, but there's also a health aspect to it that it might get moldy and get rats into it or something," Lafferty said. "That might cause problems, so there's a little bit of a concern there."