Recovering After Hurricane Mitch
By Jeff Abbott and Maria Palumbo

In October 1998, Hurricane Mitch delivered a grotesque Halloween “trick” to the inhabitants of Central America. The Atlantic basin’s fourth strongest hurricane, Mitch dumped torrential rain on Honduras and Nicaragua, two of the hardest hit countries in Central America. Thousands of people were swept away in raging floods or buried under tons of mud. In the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa, which is bisected by the Choluteca River, bridges collapsed under the pressure of the floodwaters, effectively cutting the city in half.

HFH Honduras, which had been steadily building houses since 1988, immediately joined forces with other organizations to help start the process of reconstruction. Working in partnership with the International Organization for Migration, HFH Honduras obtained a plot of land 30 minutes from downtown Tegucigalpa. In late 1999, ground was broken for the first of 387 houses to be built with families displaced by Mitch.

On a sunny day last March, hundreds of people congregated at the Nueva Suyapa building site to build and to celebrate the dedication of the first completed houses of the project. Students, partner families and local volunteers worked alongside homeowners, many sporting T-shirts proclaiming “In Solidarity with Our Brothers.”

That sense of solidarity was a key motivation behind a grant from the Knight Foundation, one of the major donors to the reconstruction efforts at Nueva Suyapa. The Knight Foundation responded affirmatively to an HFHI proposal to fund reconstruction efforts in both Honduras and Nicaragua. The result was a $1 million grant to be shared equally between the two countries. The foundation had long supported Habitat’s work in the United States, but this was the first time it had funded Habitat’s work abroad. Ultimately, its contribution to the Nueva Suyapa project will fund the construction of 115 safe, decent and affordable houses.

The houses built in this community and others like it are in large part thanks to the financial outpouring in the wake of Hurricane Mitch. While the Knight Foundation’s contribution was significant, so also were the individual donations of thousands of Habitat for Humanity supporters. In fact, some $6 million has been designated for post-Mitch recovery efforts in Central America.

“When Mitch hit, we had no system in place for dealing with a disaster,” says Kip Scheidler, special programs officer for HFHI’s Latin America/ Caribbean area office. He manages Habitat’s recovery efforts in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Venezuela. “Since then, HFHI has established its Disaster Response Office because the hurricanes, earthquakes, mudslides and floods are coming more frequently. These disasters can’t be ignored.”

Ignoring Hurricane Mitch was not an option for Vanessa Lopez, then 16 years old and seven months pregnant. Mitch’s arrival drove her and her husband, Marvin, from their precarious home. As the mud walls collapsed around them, the couple fled for their lives. They were rescued by the military and taken to shelter.

Nearly two years later, the Lopez family lives in a sturdy Habitat house, made of concrete blocks and designed to resist future storms. After months in the large macro-shelters built as temporary refuge for the victims of Mitch, their lives are finally beginning to return to normal. “Habitat is a miracle God sent us,” she says. “I didn’t think I was going to have a home, and now I have one.”

Around noon at the Nueva Suyapa site, a surge in activity signaled the arrival of Honduran President Carlos Flores. After Hurricane Mitch, President Flores implemented measures to ensure that foreign aid reached its destination. He has earned high marks for his efforts to keep all use of foreign aid as “transparent” as possible.

“They say the best place to raise a temple is in men’s hearts,” he said on that March day. “Here, we are in the process of reconstruction and doing things better than they were before.”

Reconstruction can clear away debris and destruction, but most Central Americans will never forget nature’s trick of October 1998. Even so, construction symbolizes new beginnings, and for several thousand families, a new life has begun.


By the Numbers:

From January 1999 to May 2000, Habitat affiliates in Central America built a total of 3,974 new simple, decent houses including 348 in El Salvador; 764 in Honduras; 154 in Dominican Republic; 2,508 in Guatemala; and 200 in Nicaragua.



--Jeff Abbott is associate director for the foundations and organizations department of Habitat for Humanity International; Maria Palumbo is a writer with HFHI's Latin America/Caribbean area office.





Reprinted from Habitat World Magazine, October/November 2000.
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©2000 Habitat for Humanity International