Santa Rosa de Copan, Honduras: Hurricane Mitch Updates
by Warren Post

Dear family and friends,

Many of you have written in the past days asking how we are. Some of you were lucky to get a few terse lines out of me, but most of you have had to wait until now to get a reply. Sorry about that; as you can probably imagine things here have been most hectic. Even now I have to resort to a mass mailing to reply to all of you.

First, the good news. We're fine. Hurricane Mitch, which tried and almost succeeded in hitting every square mile of Honduras, inexplicably veered off course at the last moment and missed us. All we received was a heavy rain. Now we are virtually the only pocket of Honduras with those things most people take for granted. Food to eat. Water to drink. Electricity. Crops ripening in the fields. Streets and highways open. No one to bury. Honduras doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving, being an American holiday, but as that date approaches we in Santa Rosa de Copan indeed have much to be thankful for.

Now the bad news. And the bad news is that no one really knows, nor will ever know, just how bad it is. The official statistics as of noon today were nearly 10,000 dead and 1.75 million (one third of the nation's population) homeless, but with entire coastal villages washed out to sea and mountain villages buried whole under mud slides, who knows how many are gone?

Fortunately, aid has begun to come. Mexico, Spain, Canada, England, Cuba, the U.S., and the Netherlands have all send food or rescue missions, and aid has begun to flow into at least the more accessible parts of the country. More is on its way, for which we are most thankful.

Yet the more remote areas of the country, perhaps due to the difficulty of access, remain largely untouched by aid. The area known as the Mosquitia -- the eastern wedge of Honduras -- has received almost no assistance to date, despite its size (nearly one third of the nation's territory is there). The Mosquitia is physically isolated from the rest of the nation by barrier ranges of mountains. No roads penetrate the barrier and virtually no roads exist within the area. Transportation is by boat or, rarely, bush plane, although the rivers are still so high and rough that most river travel remains impossible. In addition, there have never been telephones or electricity, and what little communication there was was via ham radio or the once monthly mail boat.

Hurricane Mitch first roared onto Honduran soil in the Mosquitia, and its largely flat topography presented nothing to slow it's then-category 5 winds. Category 5 is the highest ranking possible for a hurricane: meteorological texts refer to its force as "total destruction" and it is generally assumed that few in its way will survive.

Yet the Miskitos survived. The year's rice crop was washed away right at harvest time, few buildings remain -- the village school at Yapuwas was last seen heading downstream past Krausirpi -- but somehow the people survived. In my wife's native village of Wampusirpi, the survivors were joined in the following days by a flood of 4,000 to 6,000 refugees from up and down the Patuca River, swelling Wampusirpi's population to ten or fifteen times its normal size and quickly consuming what little food had not been ruined in the hurricane. The refugees have come in search of airlift relief, as little Wampusirpi has the only runway in the area.

The people of the Patuca need help. They need seed to replant their crops and become self sufficient once again. They need the materials and tools to rebuild their homes and schools. The most urgent problem, however, is food today. These refugees have been without outside help and without food stores for over a week. The single relief airlift they have received -- Saturday, 7 November, 3000 lb. of food sent by a group of Germans -- works out to less than 12 ounces per person. Among those 4,000+ refugees going hungry tonight as I eat dinner here in front of my computer is my mother in law, so I have a very personal stake in this effort.

Our Rotary Club here in untouched Santa Rosa de Copan, together with the Rotary Clubs of North Sacramento, California, and Edmonton Glenora, Alberta, are raising funds to airlift food and other needed materials to the Patuca refugees.

As a final request, I would like to ask that, whether you are in a position to give or not, you please consider forwarding this message on to your friends and urging them to help. That way, we ALL can help in our own ways.

I hope this message finds you well and happy and that you have a happy Thanksgiving.

Sincerely yours,

Warren and Orlanda
Hamlet, Cid, and Jaret

Warren Post lives in Santa Rosa and owns the highly recommended Pizza Pizza restaurant..

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