Rain causes problems on campus

Aaron Montes, Leonardo Montañez, and Kristopher Rivera

Leonardo Montañez, Staff reporter • September 12, 2013

Students, faculty and staff have encountered problems commuting and maneuvering through campus due to severe flooding on campus and throughout the city.

UTEP Police Corporal David Falin said that, despite the flooding, it has not been as severe as previous years when the street drains were not functioning.

“Things have been flowing better… the draining has not been a problem anymore,” Falin said. “The only thing that has happened with the heavy rain are rocks falling down from the mountains.”

Isaac Esquivel, sophomore pre-business major, was not expecting for the weather to be so harsh and was unprepared.

“I have a night class at 7:30 p.m. and people didn’t show up,” Esquivel said. “So it has been pointless when five of us show up and the professor says ‘what’s the point of lecturing?’”

Esquivel said that one of the things that is frustrating to students is taking the risk of coming to school despite the possibility that class might be canceled.

“You have people coming from all sides of town,” Esquivel said. “It took me an hour to get here and class was supposed to start at 9:30 but started at 10 and we got out at 10:20.”

After Oregon Street was renovated, water now flows easily into the canal and prevents flooding at the Don Haskins Center.

“It would also flood really bad on Rim Road, near COBA (College of Business Administration), but as long as there isn’t any debris over the grates, it will do what it is supposed to do,” Falin said.

Ana Zarate, freshman biology major, rides the Sun Metro bus to school and did not make it to her first class because of the 30-minute delay that the bus encountered due to the rain.

“It’s been coming down really hard in this area,” Zarate said. “I’m just waiting for the rain to calm down a little bit when I have class.”

Along with a few minor accidents, an issue that the police department has been concerned about is students leaving the lights of their cars on while they go to class.

“We’ve had to jump their cars in the mornings, but we haven’t encountered any other problems,” Falin said.

Leonardo Montañez and Lorain Watters may be reached at [email protected].

About the Contributors

Leonardo Montañez, Staff Reporter

Leonardo Montañez, sophomore creative writing major, was born on Feb. 19, 1993 and has been involved with journalism since then because of his father’s business. He has been a part of The Prospector for over a year as an entertainment writer with strongholds in video games, music and reviews in general. His knowledge in gaming comes from a long list of playing videogames, from console to online games, old and new generations. His music background consists of classic rock from the 60s and 70s, but he also has knowledge in music fundamentals thanks to a family member who graduated as a music major. Leonardo also has experience with different instruments and singing. Some of his hobbies include writing fiction, playing instruments, gaming and reading.

Aaron Montes, Staff Photographer

Aaron Montes is a junior multimedia journalism student at the University of Texas at El Paso. He graduated from Burges High School in 2010, where he was the head photographer for three years with his yearbook organization, Hoofbeats, the newspaper, Stampede and a literary magazine, Pegasus. With The Prospector, Aaron has been a photographer, the photo editor and multimedia editor. His major contributions to the publication have come through coverage of the ASARCO and City Hall demolitions and with the bomb threat on campus March 28th. He plans on doing investigative reporting in political and economical issues in El Paso and nationally. He strives to become part of the Associated Press.

Kristopher Rivera, Copy Editor

At the beginning of Kristopher Rivera’s sophomore year, he was sitting in a psychology course, pondering his future in regards to a career. He questioned if he really wanted to pursue a career in psychology, which was his major at the time. Feeling uncertain, he began to think of how one decision at that moment would shift everything about his future. He seemed to do well when it came to writing, and he enjoyed reading about bands in magazines such as Alternative Press, Rolling Stone and SPIN. So then he did some research and found that journalism was the way to go. Now, Rivera, senior multimedia journalism major, is scheduled to graduate this fall. It’s also marks his third year with the Prospector. He’s covered stories in sports, entertainment and news. In between some time at the Prospector, Rivera landed two internships. He spent his fall 2012 semester in Washington D.C. as an intern reporter for the Scripps Howard Foundation Wire. Many UTEP students like him have had the privilege to go experience living at the nation’s capital. He covered stories in the area, and saw political figures such as President Barack Obama, Sen. John McCain and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. Rivera also had a nice opportunity to see the Who at the National Press Club, where they talked about their organization to help children with cancer. This summer Rivera was in Sacramento, Calif. working as an intern reporter for the Sacramento Bee newspaper. He had the opportunity to cover all kinds of stories such as a homicide, community events, major league baseball games—specifically the Oakland A’s and the San Francisco Giants, and he had some opportunities to work on some music features. He interviewed Ellie Goulding, Cedric Bixler-Zavala (the Mars Volta/At the Drive-In), Randy Ebright of Molotov and a few other artists. Rivera said he’s been blessed to have these opportunities, and it all started at the Prospector. Rivera is also a member of the Kappa Sigma fraternity.