Family Mourns Brother, Sister Lost to Flash Flood

Antonia Medrano mourned her children Friday with mementos of two lives cut short: the gold chain her 17-year-old son wore and the flowing white gown that her 14-year-old daughter bought for the quinceanera she will never celebrate.

“My son and daughter are gone,” Medrano said as more than a dozen relatives and friends gathered in her Rosemead home to remember the teenagers, Raul Nahle and Dulce Natalia Castruita. “They were such good children.”

The brother and sister were killed the day before Thanksgiving, along with Griselda Gallo, 14, when a powerful onrush of water caught them by surprise as they walked during a rainstorm along the normally dry concrete bed of the Alhambra Wash.

In all, five teenagers were caught in the rain-swollen waters of the creek, a channel that runs just behind the campus of San Gabriel High School. Two survivors, Efrain Arrellano, 15, and Gina Estrada, 14, were treated for hypothermia and released.

Relatives said the wash was a shortcut frequently taken by students at the school to reach a neighborhood where many of them live. Other students, like the five swept away in Wednesday’s tragedy, used it to reach a nearby convenience store, friends said.

In addition, some youths hid there when they skipped class.

“If you want to ditch, that’s where you go,” said Danny Gutierrez. The chain-link fence separating the school from the wash had holes in it big enough to crawl through.

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Some students had even placed a ladder to help them climb down the channel’s concrete wall. School officials removed the ladder Wednesday afternoon.

Raul’s and Dulce’s father, Jose Lopez, 39, said officials at San Gabriel High should have done more to prevent the accident.

“The school should have put up signs,” he said.

Lopez and some students said school officials patrol only the campus’ front entrance, ignoring the back near the wash. School was closed Friday for the Thanksgiving holiday, and officials from the school could not be reached for comment.

But Stephen Perry, a member of the Alhambra Unified School District board, said the fence is not school property. “When I was a kid, I played in that wash,” he said. “The kids know the wash is dangerous. . . . This is a terrible tragedy.”

Relatives of Griselda Gallo could not be reached Friday. The families of all three victims are parishioners of St. Anthony’s Catholic Church in San Gabriel, and priests from the parish have counseled family members, said Father Michael Gleeson.

By Friday, relatives of Raul and Dulce had arrived from as far as Mexico to grieve with the family.

There was much in the small bungalow that reminded the mourners of the hope and promise of Raul’s and Dulce’s young lives. Dulce’s stuffed animals filled her bedroom, looking over the dress she would have worn to celebrate her birthday in March. Raul’s National Fitness Award was proudly displayed on a living room wall.

Family members also built a shrine honoring the brother and sister--rosary beads and votive candles alongside photographs of the pair and a toy truck that Raul played with as a boy.

Raul, a senior, loved to play soccer and had many friends at San Gabriel High. Dulce, a ninth-grader, was quieter, more reserved and planned to go to college. Both had spent their entire lives in the working-class neighborhood not far from the wash, Lopez said.

Raul “was a real person,” said former girlfriend Minnie Espinoza. “He was nice, and if you really needed someone to talk to, he was always there for you.”

Among those joining the mourners were two of the teenagers’ former teachers. They hugged the grieving mother, who still has a son and daughter in elementary school.

Monica De La Torre Johnson, a fourth-grade teacher, said Dulce dropped by her classroom recently. “Dulce promised she was going to go to college,” she said. “Dulce was sweet and quiet. The big question is: Why were they in the wash?”

Christine Almanza, also an elementary school teacher of the pair, added: “It always hurts when it is one of our kids.”

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Not far from the family’s home, San Gabriel High students washed cars on a mini-mall parking lot at Garvey and Evelyn avenues to raise money for funeral costs.

The teenagers used a karaoke microphone to call out to potential customers.

By Friday afternoon, the carwash had raised more than $900. The students planned to continue the fund-raiser through the weekend.

Donations toward funeral costs may also be sent to St. Anthony’s Church, 1901 S. San Gabriel Blvd., San Gabriel 91776. Funeral services for the three youths will be shared, with a vigil scheduled for 8 p.m. Tuesday and a Mass at 11 a.m. Wednesday, Gleeson said.