Parishioners rebuild church after fire

EDCOUCH — The church, built in the 1940s, was reduced to ashes just as renovations were being completed.

For several months, worshipers celebrated Mass in the parish hall as St. Theresa of the Infant Jesus underwent a refurbishing.

After the 10 a.m. Mass on Oct. 18, the Rev. Ernesto Magallón invited parishioners to the church at 200 N. Salazar St. to show off some of the work that had been done.

“We had installed energy-saving bulbs … because we see that the planet is running out of power and we should do our part” to conserve electricity, Magallón said in Spanish. “I wanted the people to see those and the painting that was being done in a cupola.”

While walking toward the 61-year-old church, the priest noticed smoke coming from one of the pillars.

“First I thought it was dust,” he said. “But … when I went in, I smelled smoke.”

The priest immediately turned off the lights and when he looked again, he saw smoke and fire coming from an air duct.

“It looked like a fire-breathing dragon,” he said.

Once firefighters arrived at the church, located just north of Highway 107 and west of Farm-to-Market Road 1015, they quickly got the situation under control — or at least they thought they had.

They brought in huge fans to get rid of the smoke and smell; Magallón went to celebrate the noon Mass.

But when the priest finished the Mass, firefighters told him they hadn’t put the fire out and that they wanted to cut open the roof to help fight it.

Magallón didn’t want them to take that step — he worried that opening the roof would allow more oxygen to the feed the flames. The priest also was concerned that weakening the roof would bring down the church’s walls, which had been reinforced in 1987 but still slanted inward.

“They couldn’t find where the fire was and it had been spread in all the ceiling,” Magallón said.

Edcouch Fire Chief Benito Olivares could not be reached for comment despite several attempts.

“We are a poor community and don’t have all this money to be doing renovations,” Magallón said. “Our renovations take a long time, because first we have the money to build a wall, so we build it. And then we put money together to buy the paint, and we buy it. But then we have to wait to put together the money to pay the painters. We go step-by-step.”

“I know they did their best, and they looked for a way of controlling it,” the priest said of the firefighters’ efforts. “This was a very hard blow on our community.”

Since then, though, the community has become more united than ever and has been organizing various events to raise money to rebuild the church.

“It is really, really sad,” parishioner Naida Torres said of the destruction.

“Our community has come together to raise money to help pay for the deductible, for any kind of insurance premium that we need to pay, so that we can rebuild our church again,” she said.

The insurance company has not yet informed them of that amount and how much of the loss the policy will cover.

The parish is still celebrating Mass in the parish hall.

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Martha L. Hernández covers Mission, western Hidalgo County and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach her at (956) 683-4846.