Hurricane Mitch in Central America (Brookside Publishers, 1999)

This essay led off this book.

Daily Happenings

From a sofa in Massachusetts, my mother only saw telecast satellite images of one massive girating hurricane. Its ghostly arms stretched from Mexico to Costa Rica completely blanketing Honduras. Worse, Hurricane Mitch’s eye approached so closely to the north coast of Honduras, where I worked, that in her mind it could have already blown my house — and me — to smithereens.

            I should have anticipated when my call finally got through that — “I’m so glad you called!  I had no idea what happened to you!” — she was nerveracked and in tears.  “All they keep mentioning on TV, every station, is La Ceiba, La Ceiba, La Ceiba.”

            “Well, actually, it’s really not that bad, mom.  There’s been huge amounts of rain which have knocked out bridges and caused some flooding; the winds really aren’t…”

            “CNN has been showing pictures of flooded houses and people being evacuated,” she interrupted.  “They say 12 people are dead — one American.”

            “How did CNN find that out?”   I questioned indignantly.  “We haven’t even heard that.  And who’s taking those pictures anyway?”  I was astounded that CNN knew so much when people in the middle knew so little. Then my mother repeated softly:  “I’m so glad you called.”

            That was Wednesday, October 28, 1998.  I still thought Mitch would stay out in the Caribbean.  Unfortunately for Honduras, Class 5 Mitch, the most powerful category of hurricanes, suddenly turned 90 degrees straight for the mainland, marching through the middle of Honduras.

October 26, Monday

 The rains had already started last night when I returned from a staff retreat in the US.  I had heard of a hurricane bound for Jamaica. But it was not until I found myself staring at the locked door of the laundromat with a bag of dirty laundry in my arms in pouring rain that Hurricane Mitch entered my life. I hardly had time to adjust. That evening the lights went out and I heard the surrounding houses release a collective yelp as their TVs blinked off. Fortunately for my roommate, Fito, and I, we were radio people. 

Fito was a gaunt, light-skinned character with an overgrown goatee.  Locals often asked him if he were a “gringo” to which he fired back, “I am from Olanchito, 100% Honduran!”  He learned English on the street, was president of the non-profit that managed Pico Bonito National Park south of La Ceiba, and loved radios.  He pulled out his Sony nine-band short-wave radio and we listened to a report on one of three remaining stations.

 This is Radio San Isidro bringing the latest of Hurricane Mitch to the port city of La Ceiba. The Miami Hurricane Center forecasts torrential rains throughout the north coast of Honduras.  Take all precautions.  If you live in low-lying areas start moving to higher ground.  We’re watching Mitch here on the internet and, it is slowly heading north along the Mosquito Coast of eastern Honduras.

             Aside from radio stations we seemed to have had sufficient bad weather supplies — candles, batteries, flashlights, cooking gas, roof water collection buckets, and granola.

October 27, Tuesday

 The rain’s incessant pounding of zinc roofs nearly deafened my trying to catch rainwater on the porch.  Inside, the refrigerator was bleeding icewater all over the floor.  Fito, a cleanliness nut, mopped it up before it had a chance to get out of hand.  We had no running water, nonetheless, and despite his best efforts, mud on the floor, flies on partially washed dishes, and a toilet that did not flush all conspired to keep us busy. 

I imagined, nonetheless, how much worse it would be to live without any sewage hook up or running water at all.  People who lived on the city’s margins hardly warranted its attention to build such utilities, but there was no where closer to the city a poor person could afford to build a house.

 Mitch is now battering the Honduran island of Guanaja, 80 miles from La Ceiba and 35 miles from the mainland. It is moving west at only 6 miles per hour. The heavy rains nevertheless are causing rivers to rise.  The Cangrejal River has risen over 15 feet.

            People climbed to higher ground hoping the water would not pursue them.  But the rain kept coming.

            Fortunately our house was solid, both legally and architecturally, and we lived on the second floor.  Some even saw it as a private shelter.  For example, the married couple downstairs sextupled as they absorbed into their apartment her family who had been evacuated from their flooded house.  They borrowed our gas stove since their electric one was enjoying a two-week vacation.  Soon, they cooked enough greased up plantains and rice on our stove to feed 12 mouths.

Inspired, we went to the one remaining supermarket to stock up on the non-perishables such as pasta, rice, beans, and potatoes.  We threw in several boxes of corn flakes that, with rainwater and powered milk, we though would hold us tight.

The rain continued to fall without a care.  Since we too had sufficient storm vitals, I didn’t care either.  I knew we were safe.  At least for now.

October 28, Wednesday

 Mitch is slowly tracking west, parallel to the mainland, 60 miles from La Ceiba.  Nonetheless last night several bridges were destroyed by the Cangrejal and other rivers.

These rivers, normally friendly neighbors of La Ceiba, had now cut it off.  La Ceiba faced a roaring ocean to the north, traitorous rivers to the east and west, and the impassable Pico Bonito mountains to the south.  Tonight 180,000 ceibeños would not only be in the dark, but trapped.

“We don’t have this chance often, let’s go see what’s happening outside,” Fito urged.  The last time he could have driven into a hurricane was 24 years ago when Fifi dealt a devastating blow to Honduras.  So we hopped in his truck and drove into the streets.  It looked as if a glacier had passed through grinding water-filled pockmarks into the urban landscape.  The rain rushed over streets, and people waded up to their wastes in water.  Low-lying houses flooded out.  People and cars formed snaking gas and kerosene lines at the last two open gas stations.

            We passed by the remains of the old Cangrejal bridge.  Many river watchers bustled in the rain.  Clearly the same question plagued everyone’s mind as they studied a river on whose rocky bed tractors once descended to extract construction fill.  The river had grown to 200 yards across and stampeded by like ten thousand head of steer. 

Would the river stay in its bed or would it rise tonight to haunt La Ceiba?

            After our tour we returned for an early lunch.  Fito was heating some tortillas and twirls on the stove when he called, “Jon.”  He lifted the gas tank with one arm.  At first his show of force impressed me, but he shook off my impression.  “I estimate we have two meals worth of gas left.  It was stupid to not check how much we had two days ago.”

            My head flushed. If we couldn’t cook the pasta, rice, and potatoes, we don’t eat.  Corn flakes and rainwater milk won’t do.  My face tightened, “Fito, we got to find gas.”

We jumped once again into his car and joined hundreds of others searching for the same basic necessities; we drove to the gas company.  Through pouring rain, we read a sign on the gas company’s locked gate, “NO GAS.”  We visited a couple other sellers, but everywhere cooking gas sold out last Monday.  We were wasting our car gas as well, so we returned.  The wife from downstairs came up again arms brimming with more plantains and rice. She dropped her head quietly as we turned her away.  Now we had to think of ourselves.

Radio San Isidro reporting with the latest and perhaps gravest news.  Hurricane Mitch has changed course and is heading for La Ceiba.  This is no joke.  Hurricane Mitch is coming to La Ceiba.  We should note that Hurricane Fifi killed 10,000 Hondurans.  That was only class 2.  The power of Mitch is catastrophic.

             Before, the radio recounted other people’s stories in Guanaja and the Mosquito Coast.  Now it would be ours.  I reminded myself that even if the Cangrejal were to overflow its borders here we had a tall, two-story house and neighbors all around.  And despite our low gas, we had collected over 15 gallons of rain water cleansed by a high-tech Katadyn filter.  We could trade water for gas!

Fito decided to make one more late trip to get the marine band radio from the office.  He wanted to talk with friends and colleagues to coordinate whatever might need to be done.

I sat in the candle light and reviewed.  We had almost no gas.  We lived three blocks from the Cangrejal which threatened to disgorge its contents.  And we had a monster hurricane on the way.

            I imagined  it wasn’t that bad.  Consider others’ plight:  the belly fat Cangrejal did flood poor communities on the far side, destroying houses and a maquila where several hundred young women once worked. Many families had been forced to abandon their houses and hide in shelters.  Most had few supplies to begin with and lived in areas barely accessible to rescue units.  I remembered what Fito had said about poor people’s having to live in these places:  the richer folk always have first choice. 

Sure, we lived by the river, but a prescient architect built us on higher ground.  We had mobile friends with food and resources.  Soon we would have a marine band radio to keep us in contact.  We had a truck, a multi-band radio, and a new can opener for some pineapples and tuna in the cabinet.  Most people didn’t enjoy these things, and all else being equal under Mitch, we should be OK.

            When Fito returned we ate and decided to cover up everything in our rooms, located windside of the house.  I stood up my box spring against the window and secured it with bungy cords.  We moved mattresses, double-cassette radios, papers, plants, and anything else requiring protection to the safer living room.

As I laid on my mattress on the floor, Fito had already gone to sleep.  The room quietly relaxed.  I peered through the open front door framing a background of darkness and driving rain.  The silence, except for rain running off the roof, tried to deceive me, make me think things were in order. I could see nothing through this portal, but I knew, almost heard the thousands of people outside, frightened, waiting in the path of the class five hurricane.

October 29, Thursday

Early in the morning Mitch came ashore.  It blasted restaurants and other tourist infrastructure along the beach, ripped up trees and splintered modest houses, tearing the rooves off stronger ones.  The Aguan River lost control and carried the entire village of Santa Rosa de Aguan out to sea, drowning dozens of people.  Mitch even buzzed the forest of the nearby national park off its own mountainside.

            When I awoke around 5 am, Fito was already listening to his Silvertronic 2-band radio with great AM reception.  He said Mitch was assaulting Trujillo, a historic town 60 miles west of La Ceiba.  The storm had yet again capriciously backtracked to pound poor communities elsewhere.  This I would read many days later in old newspapers dedicating all their pages to the hurricane.  So much information and not a single copy in La Ceiba.  The storm had made sure to destroy not just trees and houses but communication:  radio, TV, bridges, newspapers, even a chat over cold cokes proved impossible.

            Hurricane Mitch was downgraded to class 1 as it rolled over Trujillo.  We had heard rumors that Mitch would head back to sea, but regrettably he chose a path south into Honduras.

            Ironically Columbus also landed in Trujillo on his foruth and final voyage in 1502.  Legend has it that he chose the name “Honduras,” which literally meand “depths’ in Spanish, after having come out of the depths of a great storm.

            After Mitch passed, another great storm formed as hundreds of people surged toward any phone they could find — to call the radio station.  They weren’t trying to request a song or win prizes, they tried to discover if their brothers, grandparents, and mothers still lived.

            Filomena Prado calls in to tell her son in Trujillo that she is fine and would like him to call her.

            Alicia Chavez says her parents are stuck on the other side of the Cangrejal in Barrio Pizati.  She and her brother are okay and hope that Maria Antunez and Modesto Chavez come home soon.  Since a branch fell on their phone line, they should call the neighbors.

Fito, known on the marine band as Amarás, called Colorado to learn his status.  He was fine.  So were Nutria, Blanco, Oso, and Salida.  I considered calling my mom too, but I figured she never realized how close Mitch came to erasing La Ceiba from the map.

October 30, Friday

             Ironically a week after the storm, I read an article stating that just as Mitch struck, a report published by the United Nations, World Bank, US government, and other major organizations declared that Central America’s environment is worsening thanks to ineffective and unenforced laws.  The mudslides and flash floods, earning most of Mitch’s infamy, were as much human caused as natural. 

            Some politicians started to listen.  Later I would read that the mayor of La Ceiba threatened to throw anyone in jail who extracted rocks outside the Cangrejal management plan, and the national congress passed a law prohibiting people from living in risky areas.

            At home we collected plenty of rainwater, a friend had given us another tank of gas, and nothing was damaged.  Mitch wasn’t so bad to us.  But it wasn’t luck.  The destruction did not have to happen.  Had marginalized people been offered alternatives to living and deforesting steep slopes, had the forestry agency protected mountainsides from loggers who could buy them off, had construction companies lawfully extracted fill away from the bases of the Cangrejal bridges, had people been prohibited from living along rivers, most of this destruction would have been just fancy.

All photos by Jon Kohl; they did not accompany the story as it appeared in the book, which used stock photos.