Haiti: I’ve Never Seen a Storm Like That

Alicia, 50, had never experienced anything like Hurricane Matthew before. She lives in the small village of Timpé, a slow and peaceful place set between bright blue Caribbean waters and small green mountains.

Timpé is remote even for Haitians. It can take up to one hour by foot to reach the nearest town of Tiburon. The mobile phone network doesn’t work in Timpé, and the radio frequently cuts in and out of service.

With so little connection to the outside world, the villagers of Timpé had no idea that Hurricane Matthew was barrelling toward them with such force. “We heard some people saying ‘There is a bad storm coming,’ but we didn’t believe them,” said Alicia.

Alicia and three of her six children were at home when the hurricane hit. “It came at four o’clock in the morning. First we heard the wind, then we heard rain and the sound of trees falling down, and then our house collapsed. It was completely destroyed. I thought we would die.”

Timpé was littered with debris from the storm. Palm fronds, fishing nets, and uprooted trees covered the beach and the surrounding village. The farmland behind the village was completely destroyed, and many people lost all of their cattle.

“We have no safe water here,” said Alicia. “There’s no food or medicine or health care. There are no latrines. People will get sick.”

To help vulnerable families like Alicia’s, Medair distributed 2,500 shelter kits and 2,000 hygiene kits to families living in Tiburon Commune. These kits provided families with the means to make emergency repairs to their homes, to make their water safe to drink, and to practice basic hygiene.

Alicia took me to see the frame of her damaged house. “I’m repairing it,” she told me. “Right now my family sleeps in a little makeshift shelter – it is just palm and sticks.

She looks up at the frame of her house. “We will have something secure over our heads when we sleep at night, and that that means a lot to me. Thank you for your help.”