Haiti Update, A Month After Flood Destruction

Anne Toussaint is part of a team of experts who continue to coordinate emergency response and recovery efforts for Haiti's flood crisis. To date, Catholic Relief Services Haiti and local Church partners have provided food rations to nearly 40,000 people in seven departments of Haiti. Other distributions include water, hygiene kits, and household items such as sheets, clothing and mattresses. In Gonaives, CRS is also supporting cash-for-work projects that pay residents to clear mud from public buildings like schools, hospitals and clinics.

Anne Toussaint is Protection Advisor and Program Development Manager for Catholic Relief Services Haiti. Photo by Jim Stipe/CRS

Toussaint is based in Port-au-Prince and was able to tour some of the affected areas. On a recent trip to CRS' headquarters, the development expert, originally from Holland, answered a few questions about current conditions in Haiti and the increasing problems faced by the impoverished nation.

Kai T. Hill:

What are conditions throughout Haiti, now that more than a month has passed since the floods began?

Anne Toussaint:

It varies by department, but Gonaives has not yet recovered. The city is still completely covered in mud. Some businesses have reopened. Schools are closed. Several inches of muddy floodwater have remained in some pockets. Residents and businesses still have the task of clearing thick layers of mud from their possessions. It will be a while before things have normalized. What compounds the problem is that there still no place to put the mud. You can't just dump it in the ocean because it's contaminated.

Crops throughout the country are destroyed, which poses a big problem because people were already hungry. They won't see a harvest and also the land might not be prepared enough for the next planting season. Furthermore, there's so much damage to the environment that the soil can no longer produce what it needs to feed the people. All of the country's resources are getting less and less.

Hill:

Are families still living in shelters?

Toussaint:

In every department, except for the city of Gonaives, shelters have emptied and people have returned to their homes or to a family member's home if their house was destroyed. People only come to the shelters for food, which in the long term may pose other problems. If the food is free, then people don't go back to their business and try to start their own livelihoods. Food distributions shouldn't be permanent. But it's challenging because everything is destroyed, including crops.

Hill:

How are residents coping?

Toussaint:

Throughout the country, people are still traumatized. There are fears that people will start rioting out of frustration. Before the floods began, we heard of some people burning tires in outrage at the food crisis and economic conditions. The floods put this on hold for a while, but anything could arise given these conditions. It's a very, very fragile situation.

Hill:

Part of your job as a protection advisor is to identify security risks. What types of risks are residents vulnerable to during flood emergencies?

Toussaint:

Well, for one, in shelters children are often separated from their parents and need to be safely returned. There are physical risks from the large volume of water that entered communities. For instance, a colleague of mine was assessing conditions in Gonaives. As the waters rose past the second floor of one home, he spotted the family moving to the roof. The water continued to rise above the roof where the father held each of his children on his shoulders. My colleague said that he turned his head for a second and when he looked back, the family was consumed by the water. The houses themselves can pose harm as most collapsed and tumbled into the river. So these are the security issues. Then you have rumors of sexual abuse and physical violence. There has not been any proof or arrests to my knowledge but for emergencies, this is a general concern.

Women collect food rations at a CRS distribution in Gonaives, Haiti. Photo by David Snyder for CRS

Of course women, children, and elderly or disabled people are the most vulnerable. At one CRS food distribution, in the house of a bishop, these older women almost fainted because it was crowded and people were pushing. And once they receive their food and go outside, they face the risk that people will take their food. Under these desperate conditions we have to try to guarantee that the food will make it to the beneficiaries.

Hill:

How does a disaster of this magnitude affect CRS' regular programming in Haiti?

Toussaint:

Our HIV and AIDS programming in Gonaives has come to a standstill because a main CRS-supported outreach facility was destroyed by the storms. CRS helped to rebuild a hospital that was destroyed by Tropical Storm Jeanne in 2004. It was destroyed again by the recent hurricanes. Before the storms hit, we were planning to provide school fees and other services to some of the orphans and vulnerable children in the area [these are children who have lost one or more parents to AIDS or who are living under unstable conditions]. We were also planning to establish a transitional house for Gonaives. These houses are places that HIV and AIDS patients could go for treatment, psychosocial counseling and all-around support for their needs and the needs of their families, including food and school fees for their children. In Gonaives, these plans have been put on hold because of the floods.

In general, disasters affect logistics because roads that we would normally travel on are closed. So we have to travel by boat. Many of the trucks that we normally use are tied up with response efforts.

Kai T. Hill is an associate web producer for CRS. She works at the Baltimore headquarters.