Disaster Response B #4

Disaster Response B #4           

 I was talking to one of my male patients today about his experience during and after the hurricane.  He said that leading up to the hurricane they had no idea that the storm would turn out the way it did.   He’s an electrician by trade, and worked up till the storm hit.  They’d been through many storms and were not concerned.  This storm had high winds, sustained at 180mph with gusts to 200mph.  it went over the island at about 1 mph.  so essentially lingered for 2 days.  And the storm hit at the time of a king tide and the storm surge across the island was devastating.   He was at home when the storm hit.  And after a few hours he discovered there was water flowing in under the door.  The water slowly rose, and he realized that the water was flowing brown with septic system contents.  He decided to drive his family to higher ground.  On the way there the water got to deep and killed the engine of the car.  He took his child and niece in his arms and waded to a near by house.  He said the water was flowing constantly from East to West.  The family let him in their house and he said the water was getting higher and higher and was up to his waist.  He put the three children on top of the refrigerator to keep them out of the water.  He said on his way to the house he stumbled over something hitting his lower leg and hurting his toe.  He estimates he stood in water for about 16 hours.  His house is still standing but everything in it is ruined.  He had a cut and dead area on his toe that I debreeded and found a piece of glass in it. 

People are very traumatized after the storm.  They’ve lost everything in 2 days.  A team went out to help with tarps and water to the other end of the island and the damage was as if a “bomb had gone off.”  

A woman said she came back after the storm and this is what she found- it was a cement pad of her home.  No walls, no roof, no stuff laying around or near by, NOTHING- just a cement pad.  

Another man described the water coming in his house and he was hanging on to the AC unit in the wall when the water broke through his front door and swept him to the back door and nearly through it.  He said he hung on to the doors of the fridge for about 12 hours as the water swept though his house, and he struggled to not let go and get swept out.

In another small village a grandma described that she lived on a “high” spot on the island and her daughter brought her niece to be with her and then went back to the village to get other people.  They begged her to stay but she left, and was never seen again.  Of the 25 people in that little village the niece is the only one who anyone has seen.  The village is gone, and they were likely swept out to sea with the current flowing across the island.  

Another family describes, how they were in the house when the water started coming in, and they got up on chairs.  They have a disabled teenage daughter.  As the water rose the family of 4 got up on higher furniture and eventually climbed up in the rafters.  The water in their house was 10 feet deep and they only survived by being in the rafters for >10 hours, before being rescued.

            A number of churches at that end were even concrete and were destroyed.  A few houses remained standing but their roofs were heavily damaged or gone.  Businesses were flattened.  Cars swept out to the ocean.  Boats turned upside down on top of trees.  Containers on their sides, or swept away.  Rows of houses- are now rows of barren cement pads with very little debris around them.  

            Lord God, help us to show your love to these hurting people.  Help me to see each one as a person who not only needs physical help, but also emotional and spiritual help.  Give me your words for each that I see tomorrow and every day there after!