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North GA Disaster Blog
Welfare Team
Helping Animals Affected by Mexico Flooding
Nov 20
A coalition of animal welfare organizations,
including Humane Society International, have been responding to the needs of
animals in the wake of massive floods that left approximately 80% of
Tabasco, Mexico underwater.
Villahermosa, the capital of the state, had the greatest
concentration of animals with approximately 40,000 owned
animals and 20,000 strays, according to the Department of Health. The
Tabasco region is home to approximately 1.8 million farm animals, 90%
of which were not evacuated before the storm.
"Thanks to quick government response, the water level in
Villahermosa has receded quickly, however; many areas are badly
damaged and pet food and veterinary care is not easily
accessible," said Jessica Higgins, program manager for Latin
America and the Caribbean, HSI. "We are providing well needed
food and medical attention to animals in both urban and rural areas.
This is possible due to the help of local residents, who are already
cleaning up and rebuilding, even restocking the shelves of stores that
have barely dried out. Recovery is well on its way."
Teams are canvassing both urban and rural areas to determine and
respond to animal needs. Each field team includes veterinarians and
veterinary students from Mexico and the U.S., as well as animal
handlers, Emergency Medical Technicians, and bilingual guides.
Services provided include, among other things, vaccinating, deworming,
and providing food for companion animals, treating hoof rot on large
animals, and leading animals out of wet areas.
Recently, teams assigned to Villahermosa have completed their
canvassing and are now moving into the more
rural areas.
Animal relief efforts, which commenced almost immediately after the
flooding began, have been a collaborative effort between Mexican and
international organizations.
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Officials struggle to provide food and drinking water
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Mexico's flooding
brings rise in births Nov 20
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Few have been more affected than women in the final stages of pregnancy
who were forced to flee the rising waters.
Doctors at the gleaming new hospital, which sits on high ground in the
waterlogged city, have delivered 62 babies from women made homeless by the
floods. Some took boats to get to the hospital, .
Villahermosa Women's Hospital opened two months ago in a working-class
neighborhood and is home to the only
functioning maternity ward in the city. It stands like a white island of sterility and
polished cleanliness amid a chaotic mess of refugee camps, submerged houses
and polluted, brackish water.
Nurses and doctors work round the clock in a maternity ward to assist
pregnant women, many of whom gave birth prematurely because of the stress of
fleeing their homes and living in shelters. Incredibly, none of the women
miscarried, no babies have died, and only one of the 62 infants is in the
intensive care ward," said hospital director Dr. Bocanegra.
"There's a feeling of suffering and misery. These people don't know
what's going to happen or where they're going to live," said Dr Iyrma Bocanegra. "They have the most uncertain life
possible."
Just ask Veronica Hernandez. As the pregnant woman's contractions grew
stronger last week, a nearby river burst its bank and water poured into her
neighborhood. Hernandez made it to the hospital on time to give birth to a healthy girl,
but now she must figure out where to live. On Monday, her husband rowed a
boat back to their barrio to check their home for water damage.
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Hurricane season - mild for U.S.
but not the rest by Michael Christie Nov 27
For a second year in a row, the United States has escaped
a severe hurricane hit, pushing memories of Hurricane
Katrina and the flooding of New Orleans another notch into
the past.
But for Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean, the 2007
hurricane season ending on Friday has hardly been benign.
"No, not at all. The consequences for the poor have
been very high," said Judy Dacruz, a representative in
Haiti of the International Organization for Migration.
The 14 tropical storms that formed in the Atlantic this
season killed more than 200 people in Martinique, Jamaica,
the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Nicaragua and Mexico and
caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage to often
impoverished and vulnerable communities throughout the
region.
U.S. experts and media have labeled initial predictions the
six-month season would be busier than normal "a
bust" because only one weak hurricane struck the United
States -- a far cry from 2005 when a record 28 storms
formed, 15 of which strengthened into hurricanes, including
Katrina.
The 14 storms beat the long-term average of 10 per season
while the number of hurricanes, five -- or six if you count
Tropical Storm Karen which most weather experts expect will
be posthumously upgraded -- is about normal.
Yet most of the storms were perplexingly short-lived,
lasting on average just 2.4 days, the lowest ratio since
1977, according to a noted hurricane season forecasting team
at Colorado State University.
"Our 2007 seasonal hurricane forecast was not
particularly successful. We anticipated an above-average
season, and the season had activity at approximately average
levels," Philip Klotzbach, Bill Gray and other CSU
forecasters said in an end-of-season report on Tuesday. The
CSU team had predicted there would be 17 storms this year.
DIFFERENT VIEW
In the Caribbean and Central America, though, few were
breathing sighs of relief.
In the Mexican town of Mahahual on the Yucatan Peninsula,
Hurricane Dean destroyed a cruise ship pier which had been a
key source of income. "Windows, doors, electrical
systems -- except for the basic structure of the hotel,
everything was destroyed by Dean," said Rodolfo Romero,
owner of the boutique Hotel Arenas.
Dean, which became a maximum-strength Category 5 hurricane,
killed at least 27 people as it roared through the Caribbean
in August and struck the peninsula.
Hurricane Felix in September also became a Category 5 storm
on the five-step scale of hurricane intensity, killing 102
and leaving another 133 missing in Nicaragua, according to
the Pan-American Health Organization.
Dean and Felix were the first two Atlantic hurricanes since
records began in 1851 to make landfall in the same season as
Category 5 storms.
The last storm of the season, Noel, soaked the Dominican
Republic and Haiti, killing more than 150 people as rivers
broke their banks and surged through towns.
"It's been very busy, especially in Central America but
also in the Caribbean," said Tim Callaghan, a senior
official with the U.S. Agency for International Development
in Latin America and the Caribbean. "We have provided
disaster assistance to Dominica, Belize, St. Lucia, Jamaica,
Nicaragua, Honduras, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic,
Haiti, Mexico."
"The hurricane season was more intense this year on a
regional level as there were states of alert in every
country," said Walter Wintzer, director of the
Guatemala-based CEPREDENAC center for disaster prevention in
Central America.
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Evacuees leave homes for
shelters.
One
Million People Displaced by Mexico Flooding
The tragedy was reminiscent of the Hurricane Katrina
disaster in 2005, when levees failed and swamped much of New
Orleans, forcing people to flee by wading through dirty waters
late October and the first early November..
In Tabasco, tropical storms dropped more than 2 feet of
water in three days. Villahermosa, and up to 80 percent
of the rest of the state, were engulfed with the water
reaching 15 feet deep in some places.
“One hundred percent of all the crops and agricultural
fields have been lost because of the flooding,” said Rafael
Tosca, deputy director for the trade department of the Tabasco
Economy Ministry. About one-third of the state's population
depends on farming or ranching to make a living.
'The state's agricultural areas are all in flat, low-lying
regions and have been flooded. Crops affected include corn,
citrus, sugar cane, cocoa, and bananas. Vast numbers of cattle
have been drowned or are cut off by flood waters," said
Tosa..
Tabasco Gov. Andres Granier said 280 people are still
unaccounted for three weeks later, although he thinks many of
the missing are likely just separated from family members and
living in shelters. The flooding killed at least 33 people in
Tabasco and Chiapas.
With water receding this week, people are returning to
clean out their homes as questions pile up over what went
wrong.
Around a million people fled their
homes in the flooded state of Tabasco in southern Mexico. Mexican authorities say a
landslide triggered by flooding in the southern state of
Chiapas has buried dozens of homes in San Juan Grijalva. At
least 15 people are feared missing.
Area of Flooding
Dozens of Mexican military helicopters flew food and
clean water to relief centers in Tabasco and assisting efforts
to locate and rescue people who remain stranded in their homes
by the flood waters. Hundreds of thousands of people took shelter in relief centers or
fled to other
parts of the country, but there are also thousands of people who remain at home.
Red Cross worker Ruben Padron told Mexico's Televisa
Television network about efforts to help them.
He says the Red Cross is running two types of operations in
the flooded areas, one is to help people stranded by high
water and the other is to bring food and water to people who
have chosen to stay in their homes in order to protect their
property.
In many cases, people took refuge on the second floor
of a home with Police patrolling the flooded streets of
the Tabasco state capital and other towns to
stop looters. But displaced resident Daniel Hernandez said
thieves were active throughout the area.
In addition to the security problem, officials are
concerned about public health. The contaminated flood waters
was unsafe to drink, but many stranded people had no
other option if supplies were unable to reach them.
The standing water also contributed to an increase in
disease-carrying mosquitoes from which people stranded on
rooftops or open balconies had little protection.
Extreme devastation
The tragedy has galvanized Mexican officials and the
public. Thousands of troops and health workers have been
dispatched. Bank accounts and Web sites have been established
to receive cash donations, collection centers for donated
goods set up in villages and cities. Movie stars and musicians
are putting on shows to raise relief money.
The government is giving $900 to each stricken household to
replace ruined refrigerators and other goods. State and
federal taxes are being suspended, subsidized housing credit
made available.
"All of Mexico is with you," President Felipe
Calderon told residents of a recently drained neighborhood in
Villahermosa. "Don't give up. Let's move forward."
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Residents use surgical masks Nov. 12
due the odor in the streets of Villahermosa, the capital of
Tabasco state, after heavy floods.
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Christian medical team responds to
Mexico flooding Nov 27
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| Mexico's Tabasco state will continue relief
efforts under an epidemic alert. The concerns over a
waterborne disease outbreak will remain in place for another
two to three months, depending on how fast the waters
recede. At the invitation of Samaritan's Purse, HCJB
Global Hands sent a medical team.
The three Ecuadorian medical doctors, all based at the
ministry's Hospital Vozandes-Quito, include Galo Nuñez,
director of the family medicine residency, Amparo Torres and
intern Marco Yanez. HCJB's director of Vozandes Community
Development Dr. Brad Quist is being assisted by Dr. Steve
Nelson whose wife, Dorothy, is overseeing women and
children's ministries while Ralph Kurtenbach is helping in
communications and logistics.
Quist explains, "In recent days, we've been going
with church organizations to outlying communities to provide
medical assistance, but also the churches are providing food
and water and clothing, as well."
It's the area's worst flooding in 40 years. The floods
forced about a million people to flee. David Torres, team
leader for the Disaster Assistance Response Team from
Samaritan's Purse, said he is grateful for the help coming
from HCJB Global Hands. "While flooding is not a new
phenomenon in this low-lying area, flooding of this
magnitude caught many of its inhabitants by surprise."
He added, "People are beginning to return to their
homes wondering what is left of their humble possessions.
Quist says their team is dealing with the unseen needs by
extending the hope of the Gospel. "They've lost their
sense of direction in life. In fact, the public health
authorities have reported a spike in suicide attempts and
suicides in the area. We've been able to meet with people
and talk with them about their losses, encourage them, pray
with them, and encourage them to find their meaning in Jesus
Christ."
The team arrived on the field on November 15th
and head home on the 28th. A quick response
speaks volumes. "It fits well with our goals in
mission mobilization," says Quist, "especially
since there are so many nationals on the team. It's an
opportunity for them to get involved in a relief effort and
let God speak to them through their experiences."
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Utility
workers repair downed power lines on a flood-damaged road in
Villahermosa, Mexico, Nov. 9. Flood evacuees now face the challenge
of rebuilding their lives
Rescuers from the Mexican Red
Cross on Monday look for survivors after a huge landslide in the
southern state of Chiapas.
Food Convoy Fast-Tracked
When the
convoy of five semi-trailers, loaded with high-energy
biscuits, roared out of the WFP Regional Center in El
Salvador on November 7, Andrew Stanhope girded himself
for the challenges, red tape and obstacles that fate would
thrown his way.
But something was very
different this time. There were flashing red lights
and a police escort. The Government of El Salvador had
provided special police protection to ensure maximum speed
and security for the convoy. Guatemala and Mexico did the
same.
“It was great,” said
Stanhope, a wizened veteran of emergencies made even more
complicated by the miles and miles of coronary inducing
red-tape normally wielded by border officials. “This time,
we just sailed through.”
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