Aid Reaches Haiti Flood Survivors

By Kai T. Hill

October 7, 2008—As Haitians grasp for stability after a rash of deadly storms pummeled the island, Catholic Relief Services teams are working in the hardest-hit areas to provide families with food rations, hygiene supplies and other essentials.

All 10 departments in Haiti and an estimated 850,000 people have been affected by severe flooding, landslides, and wind and sea surge damage caused by storms Faye, Gustav, Hanna and Ike. The storms made landfall between August 9 and September 7, destroying homes, crops and livelihoods. The most severely flood-affected areas include the port city of Gonaives with a population of about 350,000. Lakes formed over streets and high water levels rose to upwards of 10 feet. Flooding forced families to their rooftops or into the mountains.

To date, CRS Haiti and its local Church partners have provided food rations to over 7,666 families in 6 departments of Haiti. They also provided bottled water, hygiene kits, household items (sheets, clothing and mattresses), and other essentials to an additional 1,000 families.

CRS program manager for Haiti, Greg Elder, says that food distributions in Gonaives will continue for at least another month as people get back on their feet, commerce improves, and the streets are cleaned.

"You see a lot of desperation, but at the same time you see people who are just getting ready to work—with a work face on, hard at work trying to get their homes back," he notes in a recent blog post from the field. The official cleanup, he says, will start soon. "That is going to take a lot of money, a lot of resources. But already we're seeing signs of life around the town."

CRS has helped the island's bishops secure a warehouse for incoming containers of goods donated by communities around the United States. The agency is also planning long-term recovery efforts that would target agriculture and housing rehabilitation.

Four Powerful Storms

Tropical Storm Faye, Hurricane Gustav and Tropical Storm Hanna were the first major storms of the season to pound Haiti, where people were already suffering from a global food crisis that has more than doubled the price of staple foods. With only 1 percent of Haiti's extremely degraded terrain covered by forest, floodwaters raged down the country's bare mountainsides and onto tin-shack communities unable to withstand the pressure.

Hurricane Ike became the fourth storm this season to batter the impoverished Caribbean nation. Areas such as Gonaives could only be accessed by air or boat. A main bridge in Gonaives collapsed and a breached dam in Lake Miragoane sent water pouring south.

While the estimated death toll from the four storms fluctuates, the latest government report is 387.

September 22 field reports indicated that floodwaters had receded throughout affected areas, although residents still had to slog through several inches of thick mud that had filtered into their homes. A significant amount of livestock perished. Crops that would have provided relief from the food crisis lay ruined by the floods.

Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, with more than two-thirds of Haitians living on less than a dollar a day. Occupying the western third of the island of Hispaniola, Haiti, which is slightly larger than the state of Maryland, is home to about 8 million people.

CRS' Work in Haiti

With more than 50 years of experience in Haiti, CRS is now one of the largest U.S. humanitarian organizations working in the country. Serving nearly 200,000 of the poorest and most marginalized Haitians, our projects provide assistance with health and nutrition, disaster recovery, education, water and sanitation, HIV and AIDS, agriculture, and migration.