You look out your window, you see cars floating past and you pinch yourself to see if you’re dreaming about a James Bond film remake. But this is no dream, this is for real. And where is this happening? The normally sun-drenched tourist destination of Puerto Plata on the north coast of the Dominican Republic.
Two weeks ago on a Friday afternoon and night we had the most torrential rains. I’m no global warming boffin but in the nearly 15 years I have lived in Puerto Plata I have never seen anything like this. Even our house situated in the uptown area developed a new feature – a fast flowing river in the back garden. If ever one needed proof that when building in tropical climates it is a good idea to build higher than the surrounds, this was it. The fast flowing river sped and tumbled towards the area behind us and disappeared through the back gate into the coach parking lot leaving just the detritus in its wake. We kept the dogs in the house………not that they were exactly volunteering to go out!
Uptown had new rivers, the town centre had floating cars so it does not take much imagination to guess at what happened in the low lying areas, those areas down by the port of Puerto Plata which coincidentally house the barrios of the very poor. Everything which wasn’t nailed down went. Hundreds of barrio shacks were totally inundated. Some homes could not withstand the pressure of the water and simply collapsed, their wooden plank walls and zinc roofing joining the surge of debris which swept relentlessly on to the sea. And as more garbage joined the newly formed rivers the more dangerous they became. Garbage isn’t actually the correct word – these were people’s treasured possessions: the photograph of a grandchild, the gaudy painting of the Virgin Mary, the three plastic chairs, the battery operated radio, the Sunday best outfit.
Normally when it rains in the Dominican Republic it does so for a few hours or even a few days. This is usually followed by days of sunshine when everyone sets about pulling their damp furniture outside to dry and throwing their clothes across the tops of walls or hedges to do likewise. This was different. It rained solidly for a week. As more water drained down from Mount Isabel de Torres rivers, streams and rivulets burst their banks adding once more to the misery in the barrios.
The situation was further complicated by road works on the main highway through the town; a central reservation low wall is being built on this road and that served as yet another barrier to prevent drainage. It also meant that there were several large, deep holes on this road, holes which could not be seen by those attempting to drive through the deluge because the road surface was covered by several foot of water. The inevitable happened and vehicles tipped sideways into troughs.
On Saturday morning the rain stopped for a few hours. It has to be said that City Hall and the local emergency services responded promptly as far as the town centre was concerned. Teams of workers were out from early morning removing tree trunks which had washed down the mountain on to the streets of the town. Work in different places was supervised by the Fire Chief, Colonel Reynaldo Ortiz Santos, the Red Cross, the Civil Defence and the Mayor, Walter Musa, who had a high profile hands on presence. If this was Puerto Plata’s Katrina (without the wind!) then the local services of a developing country stepped up to the plate in a way which could offer lessons to a more developed nation.
However, even this effort couldn’t meet all the need. Then on Saturday evening the downpour started again………… Much of the clean up effort was lost. Three steps forward and two steps back.
While some expats remained unaware of the dire situation facing the locals many involved themselves in the helping effort. Mostly this is done on a personal basis: you have friends, you know where they live, you know what they are likely to be facing. Being an inveterate hoarder I tend to keep things like old sheets thinking they will find a use as dust covers during house painting. Well……..they won’t! They were probably the first dry bed covering some people had seen in many days. It is quite something to see eyes gleam at the site of old sheets.
Apart from personal effort there are also foundations and voluntary organisations which co-ordinate and distribute assistance on a much larger scale. Project Las Americas is one such which, together with the Rotary Club Puerto Plata Isabel de Torres has been distributing rice and mosquito netting in the barrio so aptly named Aguas Negras. This literally means black waters but is also the term used for waste water. Many of the photographs attached were taken in this barrio one week after the floods when the founder of Project Las Americas, Bob Hildreth, was distributing assistance. The mixture of raw sewage and muddy water in that barrio truly meant an appropriate taxonomy.
Barrio visits at such times of disaster manifest two things: that the homes of people who owned very few possessions to start with can so easily be reduced to bare walls when everything has washed away or been mud soaked. And that the indomitable spirit of the Dominican people will not let something like a flood get them down for very long. How many dwellers of more developed countries, unable to dry out mattresses because of continual rain, simply get a piece of cardboard and a sheet of plastic, put it on top of the sodden mattress and lie down and go to sleep? This is what the barrio residents were doing. And when the rain has finished (and it hasn’t quite, yet) they will pick themselves up, mop themselves down and start all over again (with apologies to Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire!)
Further information about Project Las Americas can be found at the website: http://www.projectlasamer.com/index.htm
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