In the Wake of Hurricane Mitch, a Long Recovery Begins
Episcopal News Service. November 19, 1998 [98-2256]
Kathryn McCormick, Associate Director of News and Information at The Episcopal Church Center
(ENS) The fierce wind has died, the floodwaters are receding, but the pain has grown as the storm-weary people of four Central American countries begin the enormous task of rebuilding in the wake of Hurricane Mitch.
One of the most devastating storms in decades, Mitch killed at least 10,000 people, mostly in Honduras and Nicaragua. Beginning October 26, it inflicted heavy damage there and in Guatemala and El Salvador. Recovery costs are estimated in the billions, starting with emergency supplies and construction of housing for more than 2 million people -- in Honduras and Nicaragua alone. But in the wake of this horrendous damage has come help -- money, food, supplies and aid workers from throughout the world.
Phoebe Griswold, wife of the presiding bishop, has announced that she and Ann Vest, executive director of the Presiding Bishop's Fund for World Relief, have scheduled a December visit to Honduras and Nicaragua to offer comfort and view the rehabilitation effort. Grants to Central America to recover from Hurricane Mitch have sent the total number of Fund grants over $1 million this year, an astonishing figure when compared with last year's total of $300,000 for emergency grants.
Bishop Sturdie Downs of Nicaragua called the hurricane "an unprecedented catastrophe, causing more loss and suffering than the earthquake that struck his country in 1972.
"Honduras is devastated and in pain," said Leo Frade, bishop of Honduras, from San Pedro Sula, where the cathedral is located. "The Anglicans of Honduras are mourning and in rags. [Yet] we know that God has not abandoned us."
More than half of the 65 churches in that diocese have been damaged or destroyed, he reported. Nine churches, including the cathedral complex, have become refugee centers.
News agencies have noted that 13,000 people are missing; crops have been destroyed, and 70 percent of the country's infrastructure has been ruined. Doctors visiting the villages hardest hit by the storm and flooding fear outbreaks of cholera and other afflictions brought on by contaminated water supplies. They also fear the effects of a rat population about to soar because many predatory animals have drowned or starved.
And in recent days, a new threat has emerged: The thousands of land mines buried during the region's civil wars -- an estimated 73,000 in Nicaragua alone -- may have been scattered by the flooding and mudslides. Already responsible for killing or maiming thousands of civilians since the wars ended in the mid-1990s, landmines have been cited in the deaths of two persons since since Hurricane Mitch struck.
In Nicaragua, a preliminary survey of damage by the U.S. Agency for International Development (AID) said, "the extensive destruction spread over half the country overshadows the scenes recorded in Managua 26 years ago," when an earthquake flattened the capital, killing thousands. "Immediate relief assistance requirements are large," the AID report said. "Longer-term reconstruction needs are staggering."
In El Salvador and Guatemala relatively few people were hurt, but property damage was extensive. In Guatemala particularly, officials said much of the country's arable land-often called "the garden of Central America" -- was inundated by muddy water. Even if some crops could be produced, they said, the lack of bridges and passable roads would prevent transportation of workers to the fields and the shipment of food to distribution points.
Stories of suffering -- and of miracles -- in the midst of devastation abound.
"The videos scare you as you look at them on TV," said Frade in one of many e-mail messages from his suffering diocese. "You can see the trees full of trapped bodies or people that tied themselves to make sure they were not washed away. It will take days for those people to be removed from the trees as the waters go down. There is not time for that because the few helicopters makes it hard to rescue the people still living waiting for days in Honduras."
Earlier, not long after the storm had struck, Frade had recounted how the cathedral compound at San Pedro Sula, filled with refugees, watched as floodwaters roared past the grounds. They all began collecting branches and stones to shore up the compound's wall, thinking the water eventually would sweep the wall away, leaving just enough time for them to run to the upper floors of the compound buildings.
The water, carrying tons of debris, pounded the wall and, much to the astonishment of those who watched, the wall held. As the water's ferocity lessened, Frade said, even the man who had built the wall, now one of the refugees, could not explain how the structure had withstood the punishment. The men inspected it, and could find nothing extraordinary about the side of the wall that faced the compound.
The extraordinary, he said, was waiting outside the wall. There, very near the spot where the water surely would have blown a huge hole in the wall, a boulder had lodged next to the structure, diverting the torrent's flow away from the base.
Now that Hurricane Mitch has gone, the hard work of recovery is beginning. In many cases, the foreign and local groups that have been helping the many poor people in these Central American countries have become the backbone of the relief distribution, which has been overwhelmed by the response to the disaster.
The Presiding Bishop's Fund quickly made $110,000 in emergency grants to the area, including Belize. The Fund's wire transfer to the Diocese of Honduras was the first emergency relief money the diocese received after the storm.
John Howe, the bishop of Central Florida, one of Honduras' two companion dioceses in the United States, sent $25,000 and then directed the Thanksgiving offering to the recovery effort. In the Diocese of Washington, D.C., Honduras' other companion, many people responded with contributions. Bishop Ronald Haines sent $50,000 immediately and organized a Honduran Relief Fund.
The bishops of New York issued an emergency appeal for funds to aid the countries hurt by the storm and requested that special collections be taken on Nov. 8 and 15 for emergency relief.
A joint effort by the South American Missionary Society and Episcopalians in Mississippi, Wyoming and Florida made arrangements with the Dole company to ship a container of food and supplies. A parishioner of Christ Church in Denver, Steve Hinds, flew his 1942 twin-engine plane to Honduras to help deliver supplies to remote areas of the country.
Other dioceses that have had longstanding relationships with Central American countries, such as the Dioceses of Western Louisiana and Northern Indiana, have joined the aid effort.
In fact, a medical and construction group from Western Louisiana had landed in Honduras only days before Hurricane Mitch hit, Rev. Don LeGer, a member of the delegation, recalled.
"It was surreal," he said in a recent interview. "I've never been to war or anyplace where I've seen such damage. There are no words to describe it."
Part of the 17-member group set up a one-week clinic to treat eye problems in the village of Trinidad. Others got to work building a wall around a local church. They managed to finish the wall and treat a total of 500 people before they ran out of medicine and had to leave the country.
Parishes and diocesan conventions that haven't collected supplies nevertheless have collected thousands of dollars.
"We have seen the Lord in action," Frade said as the reports came in, "working through the people called to serve."
While Hondurans have contended with the aid now pouring into their country, the hardest hit by the storm, other Central American countries that felt the hurricane's fury are struggling for attention and help. And all are worried that the world's attention span -- and generosity -- will last for only a short time.
"Response to the crisis in Central America from citizens in Houston has been instant and generous," said Richard White, a parishioner of St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Rosenberg, Texas, who set up a website to plead for aid to El Salvador, where 75 died, more than 100 disappeared and 25,000 are homeless. "However, little of the aid or consideration is directed to El Salvador. And then, we can expect overwhelming USA attention and generosity to evaporate before Christmas this year."
Far from the scene of destruction, government officials around the world have begun planning long-term help for Central America, including not only funding for rehabilitation but serious consideration of pardoning the large foreign debt of these very poor countries.
Persons may contribute to the Presiding Bishop's Fund for World Relief by sending checks to the Fund c/o Bankers Trust Company, P.O. Box 12043, Newark, NJ 07101. Please indicate that each check is to be designated for Hurricane Mitch relief. Supplies may be sent to Trinity Episcopal Church, Second and Church Streets, Pass Christian, MS 39571. The current list of items most needed includes two-burner kerosene stoves, metal roofing, seeds for planting (corn, rice and red bean seeds preferred), farming tools, construction tools, and food (rice, red beans, flour and corn flour for tortillas).
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