Hughes Springs moves ahead with improvement projects while dealing with tornado aftermath
Four improvement projects are in view for the town of Hughes Springs, but first is a demolition task. The town’s volunteer fire department building, struck by a tornado Nov. 4, is being torn down to be rebuilt. Work began Friday.
While the building will be almost completely new, some frame will remain. The town’s maintenance shop, also struck, is being repaired. Fire trucks are already at repair garages.
Citizens are enthusiastic and confidant that fire safety accommodations will be available again, said town’s city manager Stephen Barnes.
“It is an exciting and busy time for us. We were all disrupted by the damage that evening, but our citizens are looking forward now. We’re really working together,” Barnes said.
Three additional town projects are these:
■ A $150,000 Texas Parks and Wildlife grant will fund major infrastructure repairs at the town’s baseball and softball complex
■ A $350,000 Community Development grant will purchase two water pumps and a new building for the town’s water system.
■ This year’s traditional 5K Texas Wildflower Trails run will give all of its fundraising power to purchase and plant new trees — the storm uprooted many — at Spring Creek Park. The community pavilion there, also blown away, is being replaced and will be nicer.
Here is a description of the projects.
TEXAS PARKS AND WILDLIFE
GRANT
In January, Hughes Springs was notified it would receive a $150,000 Texas Parks and Wildlife small communities’ grant. The local match will be $150,000 which can be from several funding sources such as labor and service.
The funds will cover improvements at the town’s recreation ball complex. Infrastructure such as concrete to replace asphalt walkways, a common area around the concession stand, new parking lots, courts for pickleball and corn hole activity and outdoor exercise equipment along the 1.6 mile walking track are to be included.
“Parking a big issue,” Barnes noted. “Lot of traffic up there. People are forced to park along the highway, and a record number of youth have signed up for ball play this spring.”
There is excitement and sense of pride in this facility, he continued. The town is happy to improve its infrastructure.
COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT GRANT
With an announcement received the same week as the Parks and Wildlife grant, Hughes Springs will receive a $350,000 community development grant to gain two high service water pumps and a new pump station at the town’s ground water storage tank.
“We have two ground storage water tanks from which we pump (from one only) to fill our two overhead, elevated distribution tanks,” Barnes said. “We think our pumps are around 50 years old and need upgrading for reliability and efficiency. We applied in 2020-21 and got it. Our match is $17,500. It’s a good grant.”
Hughes Springs is a member of the Northeast Texas Municipal Water District, which gets its water from Lake O’ the Pines. The district also treats the water it delivers.
STORM RECOVERY AND 5K RACE
“This project may seem small but is large to our citizens, “Barnes said. “Even passers-by going through Hughes Springs have told us how much they miss seeing the many trees Hughes Springs had in its town and parks but which were lost in the tornado.”
With the aid of the Texas Forest Service, Hughes Springs has developed a plan to replant the trees and with other planning to replace the destroyed pavilion at Spring Creek Park.
“One of the ways we will plant back is through funding from our 5K Wildflower Trails race this spring. That day is also Earth Day, and the organizers, Jordan Godwin and Lead Golden, came up with the idea of supporting the tree planting with the 5K race. Texas Forestry Service Staff Forester Duncum Daniel walked around with us and helped us build a plan for placement and variety of trees. He was willing to spend hours with us.”
Barnes finished by saying that for many reasons Hughes Springs has a lot to be excited about with one of the biggest problems being how to prepare for them and when to start.
“After about 8 hours of such activity the new volcano began to roar and to hurl out quantities of incandescent bombs with great force,” it said. Within six days, it reached a height of 548 feet, the report said. The adults cried, Ruiz recalled. Curious children tried to get close “to see the lava move, little by little,” said Abel Aguilar, motioning like waves with his hand. He was 5 at the time.
The landscape went from a “small and beautiful volcanic monster” to a “desolate and wiped out world” of dying trees and homes filling with ash, wrote Mexican journalist Jose Revueltas, who visited 40 days after the eruption for the Popular newspaper.
When geologists arrived, they consoled the community because they were able to explain what happened and — importantly — provide work, Ruiz said.
“My dad took the Americans on horseback to see where the fire was coming out and where the little mountain was forming,” she said.
Paricutin’s lava eventually covered 7 square miles. Its slow advance allowed residents of the surrounding communities to relocate to land donated by the government. Nobody was killed. Unlike earthquakes, volcanoes sometimes give people time to react.
In the years leading up to the 2021 eruption on La Palma, clusters of tremors had increased in frequency a week before the eruption. Also, deformities on the surface suggested magma was pushing up. Two days before the eruption there was a strong smell of sulfur in springs monitored by scientists.
The Paricutin volcano is within a volcanic belt that crosses Mexico.
Tremors in recent years, including a burst late last year, have raised fears that another volcano could appear, said Luis Fernando Lucatero, the local civil defense coordinator. Scientists later confirmed last year’s quakes were superficial with no magma rising toward the surface.
The National Autonomous University of Mexico’s Geophysics Institute has installed seismographs in key locations to monitor the volcanic field, and trained local leaders to detect other signals.
Denis Legrand, one of the volcanologists on the project, said more equipment and personnel are needed because with the current number of stations some tremors could go unnoticed until it is too late to react.
A year and a half after the Paricutin eruption began, residents of the largest area town of San Juan left in a procession behind the image of their patron saint and rebuilt their town and church elsewhere. The old town was later buried in 50 feet of lava.
While the volcano today draws visitors who bring an important source of income, the buried church is a reminder of what the earth unleashed.
“A volcano gives life. It sometimes destroys too,” Meletlidis said.