Monday - November 16, 1998.
Upate on Balfate, Sava and Tocoa from Don O'Neil:
My son Padraic, who is building a hospital in Balfate, sent me an e-mail
in which he says he was able to drive (by 4 x 4 truck) from Balfate to
Sava and Tocoa. He says, "It is literally impossible to convery the
extent of damage. Homes laid out perfectly flat, hundreds of acres of
banana plantation erased, railroad lines lifted and twisted,
high-tension power poles and lines thrown around like straws and string,
the road was peeled up and thrown down in sections and in long strips.
One side of the former highway was filled up with up to six feet of dirt
and mud while the down-stream side was carved and washed away." He
doesn't say whether any relief or supplies have come through.
O Ma R's Daily Report
Monday, November 16, 1998
Hilary Clinton and Jacques Chirac both visited Honduras today, but we missed them...we went on another road trip to see for ourselves what damage hath Mitch wrought.
This time we headed north to Omoa, Puerto Cortes and Bajamar. We had a long talk with one of Omoa's leaders and owner of the Hotel/Restaurant "El Botin del Suizo", Ing. Ulrich Ernst Lang Beermann.
Contrary to official CODER II reports, all of the bridges between Puerto Cortes and the Guatemalan border are in service! Supply runs by the Episcopal church and other organizations have been supplying Corintho (the town closest to the border) on a regular basis. Also, the bridge over the Motagua River on the Guatemalan side is fine, Honduras just needs to build its ramp and connection in order to finally establish a coastal land route with Guatemala.
Lang Beermann also reported some very interesting points regarding this area. Tropical Storm Gert caused much more damage in this area than Mitch. After Gert, there was a shower of aid to reach Omoa. Some of the locals anticipated another piñata with Mitch, and have not yet returned to their homes even though they are still intact because they are awaiting aid. However, the aid distributing authorities know how to identify real needs and are not easily fooled so eventually these charlatans will have to give up once they realize that the aid is being distributed fairly amongst those who REALLY need it.
The river levels rose so high, that the wooden pilings of the bridges came loose and started to float down the river. Reportedly locals were able to retreive them with ropes and then reset them in place once the river level receded. So basically the reports of damaged bridges were true, but they missed out on this follow-up report, which we here at Honduras.com are proud to be the first to bring you!
Another fallacy inherent in official statistics and reports released by the authorities are the actual figures, they are "guesstimates". The official data for the Omoa area lists sixty casualties, whereas only two people died when a tree fell into a house. Three towns were wiped off the map, but the locals were all saved since they had been previously evacuated. A recurring question throughout Honduran society, what to do with these people who have lost their homes? Send them back to high risk areas? Let them live in shelters for an extended period of time? Provide them land elsewhere - but where's it going to come from? etc. etc.
The educational system is in shambles, official data and statistics was lost during Hurricane Mitch. So the entire system must be rebuilt from scratch. Lang Beerman reports of a previous class size of 82 students to one teacher. We agree whole-heartedly with his suggestion that in the rebuilding of the school system, it should become mandatory that class sizes be limited to a maximum thirty students per teacher.
This area has traditionally been a very low priority to the government. Although the road into this area was paved in 1973, the following year Fifi struck and destroyed almost all of the new bridges. Temporary Bailey bridges were put into place, and some are still in use there, some 25 years later. The road originally was built with financing of some international organization, but Guatemala did not complete its part of the agreement. This meant that the road went nowhere, rather than become an important transportation route between the two nations. Reportedly, the reason that Guatemala reneged on its part of the bargain was because Puerto Cortes is a superior port to Puerto Barrios, and therefore the Guatemalans were afraid that Puerto Barrios would become idle since ships would prefer to dock in Puerto Cortes, and then transport goods via land into Guatemala. Whatever the reasons, this road project is once again being pushed and aid has been granted. Guatemala has taken the lead this time, now it is time for Honduras to rebuild this road and establish this important land route with Guatemala. In other words, let's hope that Honduras does not decide to "redirect" the project's funding to another need.
The Secretary of Tourism should push for the rapid completion of this road. Establishing another border and land route with Guatemala opens up some very interesting tour possibilities. One example would be to have a ship dock in Puerto Cortes, unload its passengers, and return in a week to pick them up again. The week would be spent in Puerto Cortes, Omoa; then cross into Guatemala to visit Livingston, Esquipulas, and other places; then back through to Copan Ruins, San Pedro Sula and finally back to Puerto Cortes to board the ship again.
Finally, we tried to reach Bajamar - the town hardest hit by Mitch in this area of Honduras (the name Bajamar means undersea - which is precisely what happened in Mitch). Unfortunately, it is still cut off by road, one needs to use a canoe to cross the water. We will visit that area at a later date.
Tuesday we are planning to visit the Tela - La Ceiba corridor. Reports in the local newspaper indicate that the bridge over the Cangrejal River just outside of La Ceiba has now been rehabilitated enough for crossing.
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