Life just outside the FLDS ranch

The city of both Eldorado and San Angelo, Texas were relatively quiet just a few weeks ago. Now they’re both bustling. Satellite trucks roam the streets, and there are Texas highway patrol vehicles and government cars all over the place. And because hundreds of FLDS children are being cared for in temporary shelters it doesn’t look like life will get back to normal for these west Texas folks anytime soon.

This being my first trip to this area of Texas, it didn’t take long to know things run at a different pace here. After letting one gentleman know a group of us reporters had come from Utah his comment was…”Oh you’re from the extreme west Texas border.” One of my colleagues had to remind him Utah became its own state long ago.

The use of yall in a Southern drawl is always nice to hear, but it took me off guard when hearing it come from a judge during a court hearing.

But back to the reason I’m here, the raid of the compound.

When I went to the gate of the FLDS ranch after the police had moved out I was surprised by how quiet everything seemed. No one there telling me to leave. And there down the dirt road behind the locked gate was the large white limestone temple shinning in the middle of the desert.

As a resident of Eldorado put it…the temple is HUGE. At least in comparison to the nothingness that surrounds it. From my vantage point on the road I can’t get a good look at any of the other structures, but there is a large construction crane out there and it’s obvious they’ve been doing a lot of building.

As for the people in town, they’ve been suspicious of the FLDS people from day one. The mayor of Eldorado told me he was first told the compound was going to be a retreat, a place for business men to get away and relax.

He says they soon realized that wasn’t the case and have been worried ever since. But everyone’s glad the raid was peaceful. There were a lot of worried people, especially law enforcement officers that thought a raid could have turned into a shoot out.

Even with all the mistrust between the FLDS and the nearby locals the Eldorado mayer did have some compliments to give the group. He says it was the cleanest most well kept place he’s ever been. (He occasionally would go to the compound to approve sewer lines and similar city matters.)

He also said the children were the most behaved kids he had ever seen. And he also was dazzled by the craftsman ship shown in the buildings on the compound. He says he wishes he could hire them all to come and fix up the town.

Adding to that, the Texas ranger in charge of the raid also mentioned how well built the buildings were and how he wanted to do as little damage as possible to the place. The well built buildings even gave the swat team a tough time as they tried to breach the temple doors. They even tried to use the machine known as the jaws of life to pry the door open, and it didn’t work.

So here we sit waiting for the next piece of the puzzle to be put in place. Only the men and few of the older women remain at the compound. Over 400 kids are in state custody. So where do they all go?