Hurricane Hanna

Over the weekend I traveled to La Gonâve.  I was going to write about what happened, but with all the severe weather that has been occurring lately, I will save that story for another time and give an update regarding the recent tropical storms.  Our internet cuts in and out due to the storms, but hopefully I will be able get this update out today.

Gustav dropped somewhere between 3.5 and 4 inches of rain here in Pierre Payen, but some places in the south of Haiti received substantially more.  I've heard reports that 77 people have died from Gustav and now we are currently in the middle of another hurricane...Hanna.  Last night I went to bed after seeing that Hanna was well North of Haiti and was supposed to be heading northwest.  I heard a little rain while trying to fall asleep but when I woke up, the wind and rain had picked up a lot and I found a decent amount of water on my bedroom floor.  I went outside the dorm building and saw a lot of our yard under water.  Overnight, Hanna had slowly tracked South and was hitting Haiti harder than expected.

This morning, Chris and I drove to the Montrouis River to see how bad it was flooding.  The force of the rushing water is eroding the landscape and destroying whatever is in its path.

Later, Chris, Leslie and I stood under the back deck and watched Dennis' boat fill with water as the waves broke over it.  It didn't take long for the entire thing to be under water and then we started getting oars and other parts of it washing onto the beach.  The boat is still upright with the mast sticking out of the water.  Hopefully it stays like this until all this passes.  Here is a picture a few minutes before it started sinking.

We've heard that there is flooding in Gonaives. In 2004, a hurricane hit the northern part of Haiti and Gonaives flooded.  3,000 people died as a result, the majority being from the city of Gonaives.  It is currently still pouring here and we've already heard that parts of the city are under 9 meters of water.  This sounds like a repeat of 2004 and there will undoubtedly be a lot of people displaced and many casualties.