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CAMO/FUNDACION MARIA/PEACE CORPS--January 27-December 31, 1999 History
Tegucigalpa, San Pedro Sula and Choluteca are the three largest cities in Honduras. Tegucigalpa, Honduras's capital, is home to over 1 million people and is a large commercial center. San Pedro Sula is the industrial capital of the country and serves as the conduit for goods that travel in and out of the country through the principal port city of Puerto Cortés. Choluteca is the gate to the Pacific Ocean and is the country's largest producer of shrimp, salt and other lucrative export crops. These three cities are connected to each other and the rest of the country by a limited highway system that serves as the lifeline to many smaller communities. October 25-29, 1998 - At the end of the hurricane season, one last blast from Mother Nature is brewing over the Caribbean Sea. Hondurans, Nicaraguans and Guatemalans prepare for trouble along the Caribbean coast as meteorologists predict that Hurricane Mitch will reach titan proportions. All three countries have weathered dozens of hurricanes over the decades and have survived several of the most severe ones. Evacuation begins along the coast; islanders off the north coast begin to the feel the effects of Hurricane Mitch. As Mitch moves closer to the mainland, northern Honduras and Nicaragua are battered by strong winds and rain. October 30-November 3, 1998 - Hurricane Mitch defies experts' worst predictions and hangs, almost stationary, over Honduras. The hurricane produces almost six feet of rain within a few days. Saturday, October 31 sees flash flooding throughout the country, most severely along the Choluteca River in central and southern Honduras. Choluteca, San Pedro Sula and Tegucigalpa suffer severe damage. Hundreds of smaller communities are severely affected, several of which are completely destroyed. Homes, businesses and utilities are washed away. When the flooding ends, thousands of people are dead and many more missing. Roads and bridges are damaged and destroyed, cutting off many towns from supplies and emergency services. November 10, 1999 - Hurricane Mitch has finally blown itself out. Honduran government and foreign aid organizations begin to take stock of the destruction. Officials estimate 6,000 dead and 8,000 missing. Damage to infrastructure, including basic services, roads and bridges, ports, businesses and homes is calculated at over US$ 5 billion. Seventy percent of all crops, both export and subsistence, have been lost. Honduran President Carlos Flores and First Lady Mary Flakes de Flores issue a plea to international organizations for immediate and long-term disaster relief. One of the major concerns of Honduran and international health organizations is the threat of epidemics due to the terrible conditions left by the hurricane. Tens of dozens of communities are left with mud- and debris-filled streets, homes and businesses. Many public health centers are destroyed or inaccessible. Reports of rising levels of diarrheas, fungal and eye infections, intestinal parasites and malnutrition, and acute respiratory infections require immediate action. Honduras’s Ministry of Public Health compiles and distributes a list of desperately needed antibiotics and other medicines. First Lady Mary de Flores contacts CAMO
executive director Kathryn Tschiegg, in Honduras during the hurricane,
to ask for her help in formulating a cooperative relief plan between her
philanthropic organization, Fundación María, and Central
American Medical Outreach. During a planning visit to Honduras in early
December CAMO, Fundación María and Peace Corps-Honduras hold
meetings to finalize contracts in which CAMO agrees to supply materials,
equipment and on-site leadership, and limited volunteer resources. Peace
Corps commits itself to providing human resources for a team of diverse
volunteers and Fundación María to lending itself to logistical
coordination and facilitation in Honduras. Ms. Tschiegg and the CAMO team
begin working to pull together resources and equipment for the project.
After two months of active campaigning and substantial support from several
hundred individuals, church and civic groups, businesses and foundations,
CAMO has gathered enough supplies and equipment to fill five 45-foot semi
trailers and sufficient funds to field the tri-organizational team for
9 months. Five volunteer drivers will take the trucks to the U.S./Mexico
border at McAllen, Texas and five Honduran drivers will meet them there
to finish the journey southward. The trucks leave northeastern Ohio for
Honduras on January 1, 1999.
Phase I - Potrerillos, Cortés -- January 27 - March 21 The county of Potrerillos is a town of 8,000 and a collection of smaller communities located 20 minutes from San Pedro Sula by car. The communities lie in a fertile valley at the dividing point of the Río Ulúa, one of the largest rivers in northwestern Honduras. On October 30 the Río Ulúa jumped its banks and flooded most of the Sula Valley, including the Potrerillos area. Thousands were left homeless, roads were damaged and filled with mud and debris, and the potable water system that served over 25,000 in the Potrerillos area was rendered useless. The public health clinic in the city of Potrerillos, on which the majority of the residents depended for medical care, was without electricity, running water or storage space, even before the hurricane. The clinic’s roof leaked and there was considerable water damage from the storms. Schools were filled with several feet of mud; students went months without classes. The CAMO-Fundación María-Peace Corps (CAMO/FM/PC) team arrived at Potrerillos on January 27, 1999. Top priorities for the Potrerillos phase of the disaster relief project included removal of mud and debris from the communities, rehabilitating the water system, repairing buildings left standing, providing temporary shelter for those left homeless and filling in roads swamped over by mud and water deposited by the floods. Also of importance was evaluating the psychological state of the survivors of Hurricane Mitch and providing training for teachers, community workers and parents to deal with the aftereffects of the storm. Many survivors lost family members, homes and businesses. Hundreds were trapped in terrifying conditions (in trees, on rooftops and other exposed areas) for up to three days during the hurricane. Post-Mitch effects included an increase in specific medical problems. CAMO/FM/PC team nurse and volunteer physician accompanied the Potrerillos public health staff in evaluations of patients and assisted with a local malaria detection program. Throughout the length of the project, team
members counterparted with Honduran government and non-government agencies
to assure the success and continuity of the projects initiated by team
and Honduran community members. The CAMO/FM/PC team consisted of 14 volunteers
with skills in construction, nursing, social work, mechanics, heavy equipment
operation and community development.
The public health center, which was already in need of repair before Mitch, suffered severe structural damage during the storm. Everyone involved knew the importance of having the clinic in good working order because of the spread of disease and the lack of sanitary conditions after the hurricane. However, the job was too much for the recovering community to take on alone. After a detailed evaluation with clinic staff and community members, construction began. They replaced the leaking roof, built shelving, installed a fan to improve ventilation in the clinic, replaced rotted doorjambs, built dividers between clinic rooms, replaced all lighting and door locks, and installed a water tank and the pipes to connect the tank to the clinic’s basins and toilet. This was the first time ever that the clinic would have water to wash hands, instruments, and flush the toilet. After $3,000 and one month’s labor, the renovated, newly-painted health center was ready. As Joe Wilson, team carpenter, later reflected, "We were all really proud."
Phase II - Choluteca and Marcovia, Choluteca -- March 27 - August 18 Choluteca was a fertile zone, producing shrimp, salt, cattle and fruit for export. Located near the Gulf of Fonseca on the Choluteca River, Choluteca served as a port entryway and border stop to Nicaragua. Most of Honduras’s central and southern regions’ watershed empty into the Choluteca River on its way to the Pacific Ocean. In a few short days, flooding from Hurricane Mitch destroyed much of the agricultural and cattle grazing lands, displaced thousands of families from their homes and buried towns in up to 12 feet of mud, uprooted trees and debris. Several small villages were completely inundated, forcing residents to relocate to refugee tent cities without the benefit of running water, sanitation, health care or a stable food source. CAMO/FM/PC team members saw housing, medical care, and sanitation as major priorities from the beginning of the project. Because of the low elevation, much of the area retained standing water long after the flood waters had receded. Stagnant water encouraged the spread of bacteria, mosquito larvae and parasites. Local health workers saw a sharp increase in diarrheas, respiratory infections, fungal and eye infections, malaria, dengue fever and malnutrition. Choluteca:
Marcovia, located to the southwest of the city of Choluteca, was one of the communities that suffered almost total loss of infrastructure during the flooding caused by Hurricane Mitch. The U.S. media broadcast images of destruction and desolation in this community. Over 2,000 homes were affected; hundreds of families were forced to relocate permanently. When CAMO leadership initially sat down to plan the structure of the relief project, both Peace Corps and Fundación María put emphasis on the need to reach Marcovia to begin the rebuilding process. Greatest areas of need included housing, water and sewage, elementary schools, nutrition, basic health care and community organization. One of the greatest obstacles facing the
project was the lack of communication between sponsoring organizations;
the CAMO team helped to facilitate the early stages of planning and meetings
between the large organizations responsible for building housing and laying
the water and sewage systems for over 7000 displaced men, women and children.
The team nurse and social worker concentrated on patient treatment, referral
and monitoring. The nurse worked two to three days a week at Renacer Marcovia,
a housing project for people left homeless after Hurricane Mitch, under
the auspices of CARE, the German Red Cross and Spanish government. At Renacer
Marcovia the team nurse saw 30 to 50 patients per day, two to three days
a week, for four and a half months.
Phase III - Pespire, Choluteca -- May 1 - December 31 Pespire is located between the Pan-American Highway and the Río Choluteca in the department of Choluteca. Pespire is a picturesque colonial town of 2,000 and is the county seat for several smaller communities. In the very early hours of October 31 over half of the city was flooded and nearby bridges submerged or destroyed, leaving hundreds of people homeless and cutting off many smaller villages from Pespire and the highway. Community members in Pespire were determined to rebuild homes and businesses; by the time CAMO made its initial site visit in early December 1998, many families had begun digging homes out of up to ten feet of mud and sand. In order to repair streets and begin building new homes further from the river, Pespire residents would need heavy equipment. CAMO contacted Pespire’s Catholic priest and the Salvation Army, already stationed in Pespire, and offered to join efforts to expedite site preparation, materials deliveries (sand, gravel, cement, etc), and road clean-up. Two CAMO/FM/PC team members moved into
Pespire with two of the front loaders and one of the dump trucks for clean-up
and distribution. Salvation Army and CAMO split the cost of fuel for the
equipment, Salvation Army took responsibility for servicing the equipment
and provided a driver for the dump truck in Pespire. When the CAMO/FM/PC
team volunteers arrived in Pespire, community members and Salvation Army
personnel had just begun the foundations of the first housing site. The
two front loader operators worked six to eight hours a day, five to six
days a week on clean-ups, distribution of materials and loading the dump
truck. The dump truck operator worked eight hours a day, hauling five to
seven loads of building materials a day to the construction sites. In less
than six months the housing sites were well on their way to completion
and dozens of houses that were left standing after the flooding, were cleared
of mud and debris.
Phase IV - Isla de la Boca del Río Viejo, Choluteca -- July 2 - August 18 The island fishing village of la Isla de la Boca del Río Viejo was nearly washed away by a tidal wave in late May of 1999. All 82 families were forced to relocate to the mainland permanently as successively higher tides ate at the sandy soil of the island. The families moved to an unoccupied plot of land in Pueblo Nuevo, Choluteca; the plot was without clean water, shelter, trees or any other type of improvement. Temperatures hovered around 90-95 degrees and the rainy season was rapidly approaching. The families were quickly set up with three large Army tents and some food, but it was clear that without more aggressive intervention the almost 500 people would soon be facing spreading disease and malnutrition. The CAMO team heard about the community’s situation at the end of June and began to work with the families in four specific areas: health and nutrition, shelter, education and permanent housing/community development.
CONCLUSIONS
While this report recounts the concrete achievements of the CAMO/FM/PC team, it fails to capture the human element that was present throughout the Hurricane Mitch Relief Project. Nor can it begin to describe the conditions under which the team worked and thousands of displaced survivors lived every day. The homeless families we served experienced the lack of permanent housing, a regular food supply, a change of clothes or even water to wash in. They lived it every day, 24 hours a day; many still do, over a year after the storm. The team worked and visited with men and women struggling to feed their thin children and gave what they could; the numbers of homeless and bereft were overwhelming. But evidence of the strength of the human spirit was everywhere, too. People’s ability to keep working for a solution, and their ability to smile even during the most painful times, was proof that through hard work, faith and cooperation, positive change can be affected in even the worst of situations. The Hurricane Mitch Relief team helped to make some of those days easier, to restore hope to those who had lost it and, most importantly, to give people the tools they needed to help themselves.
CAMO Director: Kathy Tschiegg
CAMO/FUNDACION MARIA/PEACE CORPS TEAM VOLUNTEERS
Appendix IIa. Donated Inventory/Equipment Listed below are items which no money was paid, FMV of donation listed:
Appendix IIb CAMO's
Funding/ Financial Information
Large Equipment Hand Tools Food Purchased at Wholesale $5,000.00 Cash for operations for 12 month period
Appendix III Donated Hours of Service-- (30 hours/week) ($15/hour)** Estimated HoursVolunteer Name Skills Area Dates of Service Value
The value of service for CAMO fiscal year of May 1, 1998 - April 30,
1999 is $49,140.00
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