National Guard troops are in Dallas to demolish nearly 50 rundown drug houses across the city.
The effort, Operation Crackdown, is funded by money from statewide drug seizures.
"Any time you have an opportunity to clean up certain communities, there is an opportunity for growth," said Councilman Dwayne Carraway, who helped bring the National Guard troops to Dallas.
Residents along Concord Avenue awoke Tuesday to military vehicles lining their normally peaceful street.
"All the military and the police -- I didn't know what was going on," Juan Garcia said.
An abandoned house on Concord Avenue next door to Gloria Martinez's home was among the first to face the bulldozer.
"We had a family that lived there," she said. "They moved out, and they just forgot about the house."
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The house sits half a block from an elementary school.
"My concern was that men, druggies, drunk people and homeless would go in there," Martinez said. "I wouldn't let my kids play out in the back without us being with them."
But the grandmother's worries were removed along with the house.
"Yeah, they can play out there without us being there," she said.
The National Guard troops will be in Dallas for a couple of weeks.
This the program's second year. In 2010, the city took down 39 structures.
