By Tim Traynor

Natural disasters are a way of life in Haiti. They manifest themselves when the population seems most vulnerable. Recently, a cholera epidemic waged chaos over the entire land just when the residents seemed to be putting things back together after the shattering earthquake of 2010.

There is another type of spontaneous event which often goes unnoticed as it pales against the more dramatic episodes that have befallen this careworn land. It is the hurricane, a furious conflagration of wind and rain that punishes the exposed inhabitants with unrelenting anguish.

To appreciate what one hundred mile per hour winds can do to poorly constructed stick and mortar covered huts, you need to imagine letting loose a three year old into a fine crystal shop where everything is within reach of his curiosity. A sunny morning can turn violent in a few hours, drenching the denuded hillsides with a half a foot of rain, like a broken street main washing tons of brown sticky soil down the mountainsides and into every unsecured place that lie in its path.

We recently had such an event in Milot when Hurricane Tomas coursed its way along the Western shore of Hispaniola. As it neared the North, it made a faint turn inland which whipped surface winds upward of 85 miles an hour. We had been in the process of final assembly and construction of our new 6,500 square foot warehouse located at the CRUDEM complex, when the forest of mango, palm and grapefruit trees surrounding us became animated, dipping and swooning under the persistent and building pressure of the advancing storm system.   Over the past years, I have inherited the designation of Disaster Relief Coordinator.

I think that title is bestowed upon the hapless individual who finds themselves in the path of any extraordinary happenstance that drops in uninvited to our little hospital. But being so designated, I was compelled to organize the cleaning of drainage ditches, securing all items that could become airborne in the heavy winds, fastening tarps and covers over known areas subject to profound leaking, the filling of sand bags to prevent rising waters from entering the grounds and generally make preparations to receive any number of people who encounter injury or hardship resulting from the calamity.

This particular hurricane moved rapidly across our path and careened out to sea within a few hours. However, it left behind grief and privation. On the international news front, little was written of or mentioned about the passing storm. I guess the death toll didn’t rise to the standards expected of page one catastrophes. But in human terms, it was another setback to an already impoverished social structure that has endured an unbroken series of these incidents.

Later in the evening, a young woman made her way into the hospital with her threadlike dress clinging to her slender body. With no fat to warm her tiny frame, she was shivering from the unseasonable cool air that oft follows these storms. Her ailment wasn’t serious but her misery was palatable. She had been stricken by flying debris that caused a small puncture wound in her arm.

She would be OK once her wound was bound; she had something to eat and a warm blanket about her shoulders.

Although our hospital has no food resources or means to provide same, there is always someone close by who is attuned to the need and resources which are often located by those surrounding the needy. There is a sort unspoken responsibility that appeals to the “nature of our better angels,” to quote Lincoln.   The next morning brings about another day of blue skies and that inimitable optimism that only Haiti can muster. That smell of open sewers is missing today from the colliery of scents that usually permeates the roadway between CRUDEM and the hospital, a side benefit from the tropical rain flushing of the canals that line our streets.

The mud from the previous day’s storm is piled up against the stone fences and wooden stalls of the harpers in the market. There are a greater number of tan puddles than usual that mirror the street above where dogs pause to guzzle the night’s residue. The noise in front of the hospital builds as hundreds of people compete for your attention and empathy. “Is life back to normal?” I guess so which in itself is a shame.

Tim Traynor is the Construction Projects Manager for CRUDEM/HSC. He spends several weeks each month in Milot.