Back to blue skies

After a very gray and rainy week we were back to blue skies and hot muggy weather over Port-au-Prince today. A Category 1 Hurricane Gustav passed over Haiti on Tuesday and Wednesday and is currently picking up force as it heads towards Cuba.

There was a lot of nervous anticipation about the storm on Monday and Tuesday . The clinic closed early on Tuesday as the rain started to fall. We stayed closed for Wednesday. In the end, we didn't experience high winds here in the city- just 24 hours of steady rain and a 10-15 degree drop in temperature that lasted about 2 days.

24-hours of steady rain isn't much of a problem up on the hill where I live - just some interrupted internet access and a little stir craziness. It can be a huge problem in the slum communities along the coast and on the eroded hillsides prone to mudslides. Imagine trying to feed and put your toddler to bed when there is water coming from everywhere - down through the roof and up from the floors of your one-room structure made from mud, cardboard, tarps and wood scraps. I heard one story of mothers putting kids in garbage bags up to their necks and having them sit under the table in hopes of keeping them halfway dry.

By Wednesday afternoon the rains stopped but most businesses remained closed and the streets were quiet. I read one article saying that recent efforts to clear garbage from sewage canals helped control flooding in Port-au-Prince relative to other storms - very good news. Things were back to normal in the clinic on Thursday.

After two days of canceled flights, the airport was the most chaotic place to be in Port-au-Prince in the wake of the storm. Extra planes from Miami and New York were added to the schedule on Thursday and Friday resulting in way too many people and bags moving through a relatively small airport. A friend traveling out on Thursday morning said she had to pay two different porters $20 each just to get through the massive crowds and police barricades to make her highly delayed flight.

Sadly the Gustav story is very different for those people living in and around the lovely beach town of Jakmel - about 60km south of Port-au-Prince - where the storm made landfall. Estimates are that across Haiti 51 people died and 6,300 people have been displaced as the winds and rains washed out homes, roads and bridges. Damages to crops and livestock remain uncertain - any damage at all is discouraging given the present "food crisis". (see AP article here)

The story isn't over yet - Cuba braces for a much stronger Gustav and I've seen lots of reports about preparations and evacuations in New Orleans and Louisiana. There are predictions of an active hurricane season all the way through November.