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Hurricane Mitch: Anatomy of a Disaster
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| CARE provided emergency relief to Honduran families who lost their homes following Hurricane Mitch, setting up shelters and providing food, water and basic medicines. |
As hurricanes go, Mitch was a sucker punch. Rather than the hit-and-run frenzy of normal Caribbean hurricanes, this late October storm -- the fourth largest of the century -- moved just off the Honduran coast and then stalled. The storm pumped rainfall for days -- as much as four inches an hour -- over Honduras. By the time the rain eased, devastation was widespread, immense and tragic. The country was figuratively broken and it took weeks to reestablish ground links and other forms of communication with many regions.
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| In some cases, people had enough warning that they were able to evacuate. Still, more than 9,000 people died. And an estimated 2.9 million people were impacted by the storm. |
Decades of deforestation took a toll in hundreds of landslides, making mountainsides look like coffee-colored ski slopes. Rivers broke their banks, destroyed crops and dumped sand and rocks for miles. In some places, the debris still lies thick enough to make once-fertile farmland look like desolate beaches. The storm struck the rural poor particularly hard, destroying tens of thousands of homes. They had no insurance to rebuild.
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| A man and his son stand beside the remains of their home in Choluteca. |
In the immediate aftermath of the storm, affected families relied heavily on aid from the international community -- food, clean water, shelter materials and basic medicines. Once the emergency was over, and those same families were confronted with the task of rebuilding their lives. One year ago, Mitch wrought havoc in less than 48 hours. Though the rebuilding has begun, the job is far from complete.
As a press officer for CARE, I was on-site immediately after Hurricane Mitch struck, and witnessed much of the devastation first-hand. Last month, I had the good fortune to return to see the progress that has been made as Honduras starts down the road to development once again. Following is an account of my journey…
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