Time.com has picked up the story of the devastation and suffering in Haiti in the wake of the tropical systems that have laid waste…
Haitie Gets No Mercy from Hanna, Ike
The media profile of this season’s hurricanes grows with their proximity to the U.S. mainland, but by the time they reach American soil they often have already delivered their harshest punishments — on those least able to cope. When Faye and Gustav hit Haiti last month, the poorest country in the Western hemisphere began searching for a humanitarian lifeline. Then came Hanna, dumping more than nine feet of water on Gonaives, the resource-starved country’s second largest city. Last week, Ike delivered the knockout blow, swallowing the bridges and roads that provided humanitarian access to the worst-hit areas. Eight of the country’s 10 geographic departments have been flooded, hundreds of Haitians are dead, tens of thousands are homeless, and hundreds of thousands are cut off from humanitarian aid.
[...] As things stand, it may be days before anyone can evacuate citizens, get food and water distributed nationally, and remove bloated bodies. The country is no better equipped today than it was four years ago when Tropical Storm Jeanne killed more than 3,000 and displaced more than 200,000. CARE alone removed 114,000 metric tons of debris and mud from that storm, and distributed 2,200 tons of food and 110,000 half-liter bags of water. The damage from this year’s storms is much more severe.
Haiti’s political instability has imperiled efforts at disaster preparation. The revolving door of governments in the last 20 years continued five months ago when riots sparked by rising food and fuel prices toppled the most recent incumbents; it was only last week that parliament ratified Michele Duvivier Pierre-Louis as Prime Minister. Her first order of business will be humanitarian relief. Two months ago the Family Early Warning Systems Network (composed of USAID, the European Union, FAO and the World Food Program) predicted that nearly half of Haiti’s population — or some 4 million people — could face a food crisis by December. And that was before the deluge that flooded the country’s breadbasket.
continues…
I would be hard pressed to label Haiti as anything other than a tragedy, and that is during times that are classed as “normal” for the small island nation. I feel, acutely, America’s culpability when I think about Haiti and the conditions there. It will take several generations, at minimum, to overcome the Aristide era– and America’s hand in all of that. Guilt is a hollow sentiment though, and no salve to immediate and crushing problems so many are struggling under.
SZ
