Nicaragua After Felix: Recovery Just Begun

by Conor Walsh

Within 48 hours of Hurricane Felix's landfall on September 4 in Nicaragua's northeast, I was on a plane to see for myself the damage it caused and to understand the needs of those left suffering in its wake.

Our plane took us straight over the Bosawas Natural Reserve. The 1.8-million acre swath of land — the country's largest tract of virtually untouched old-growth forest — is often referred to as the "lungs of Nicaragua." But Hurricane Felix tore straight through it, leaving in its wake a scar of fallen trees that will no doubt have long-term effects on the health of Nicaraguans and their environment. With so many trees down, soil erosion and flooding are likely to increase in the Río Coco, along which most villages are located.

Our plane touched down in the town of Waspam. The town itself was left relatively unscathed — with some damage to roofs and walls — but the big fear was of flooding from the Coco. Its water ran brown with mud and the level swelled close to that seen during Hurricane Mitch as it carried branches, logs, even entire trees downriver. The danger was even greater downstream, as the rain pouring from the hillsides and river tributaries emptied into the already-bloated river.

Fathers Elvis Hems and Floriano Vargas of the parish of San Rafael, Waspam, accompanied me to the parish house. They too were returning to Waspam for the first time since the hurricane, having been summoned to a retreat in Managua only days before Felix struck. That evening, we met with an assessment team that had traveled upstream to gather information on the damage. We heard of bodies floating down the river near the village of Santa Isabel, 74 miles upstream.

The next day, Father Elvis arranged for us to travel down the road from Waspam towards Puerto Cabezas, where many communities were said to have been hit hard. We stopped first in the town of Awas Tingni, an indigenous community of some 1,000 people belonging to the Mayagna tribe.

Massive Destruction

As we approached the village, the pine forest gave way to more tropical trees, almost all of which had been snapped off at the middle. The scene reminded me of Amazon deforestation. All that was missing were the fires and bulldozers.

"It's as though a giant chain saw had ripped through here," said Father Elvis.

A group of people seeking temporary shelter in the still-standing cement school greeted us. They said we were the first people to visit them aside from a group of journalists that had stopped by the day before.

"They just took some pictures and moved on," said one of the villagers.

The destruction around us was massive. Almost every house was down. Piles of timber stood in their places. Trees, branches and other debris littered the ground. Tin roofing clung to tree trunks like cardboard. Wells swelled with mud, and latrines overflowed. And most of the communities' crops were long washed away, leaving villagers to eat whatever they could find.

People collected cups of liquid chlorine to disinfect their water at the health post, which was flooded but undamaged.

"[The chlorine] is not enough to stop diseases," said a nurse. "I myself have diarrhea and feel weak. I don't know where to get clean water."

Anselma Demetrio and her four young children huddled under a leaning piece of tin roofing, cooking a meal of corncobs.

"My three sisters were in Puerto Cabezas, and I have not heard from them," she said.

I took down their names, but had little hope I would be able to do much.

'As Though a Bomb Had Gone Off'

An hour down the road, in the twin villages of Santa Marta and Auya Pinhi, similar scenes greeted us.

"We never used to have a view, now we can see almost to the ocean," said Auxiliadora Acuña Sanchez, the town's judge, one of the few public officials we met.

All of the trees and vegetation had been stripped clean, leaving clear views of the surrounding plains. The school looked as though a bomb had gone off inside. The windows were blasted out, the roof was gone, and the chairs and tables were lying in a scattered mess.

The nearby clinic, which CRS helped equip, lay in a shambles. Broken equipment and soaked medical files covered the floor. Here, too, people were rebuilding as best they could, with tools and materials they rescued from the disaster.

Asked what their first priority was, people answered food, shelter, water, medicines. The list went on.

"The number one need is to recover and rebuild. But it is hard to see where to start," said Eloy Gosden, standing on top of the ruins of his home in Santa Marta.

We spent that night in Puerto Cabezas, the center of which was relatively less hard-hit. Fallen trees — some of them centuries old — had smashed walls and downed electricity lines, but most of the homes were unscathed. Built of concrete and grouped closely together, the homes must have been protected from the brutal winds.

In Puerto Cabezas, the anguish was at the port. As dawn broke, hundreds of people converged on the pier to await the coast guard, which carried about a dozen survivors. Some were fishermen caught in the storm. Others were stranded as they tried to escape the storm on flimsy dugout boats known as "panga." As the survivors emerged from the coast guard boats, relatives ran to them and journalists crowded around.

"I held onto a piece of wood until the boats came and found me," said one dazed and dehydrated-looking lobster fisherman as the cameras rolled.

Women huddled on the pier wailed as men wiped tears from their eyes. Other people stared straight ahead, their stony faces revealing nothing of the pain they felt. Their loved ones were not among the survivors.

As the plane taking me back to Managua passed the coastline, I saw more fishing boats in the ocean below. Perhaps they were fishing for their next meal, or perhaps they were looking for more survivors. In the following days, reports flowed in of more bodies found at sea or washing up on the coast. But there was little news of more survivors. For now, at least, the storm called Hurricane Felix was over, but the recovery effort was only just beginning.

Conor Walsh is CRS' country representative for Nicaragua.