O Ma R's Daily Report
Tuesday, November 17, 1998
We went on another road trip, this time attempting to reach La Ceiba. Except for a few isolated areas, the road between El Progreso and La Ceiba is still in good shape. Unfortunately, we were unable to reach La Ceiba!!!
The bridge over the Rio Bonito is gone, this bridge had been in very poor shape prior to the arrival of Hurricane Mitch, which apparently swept it away completely. People are crossing this river just outside of La Ceiba (near the airport) by means of a suspended hammock type bridge that hangs over the river. The local authorities are allowing only ten people to cross at a time to ensure that the bridge holds up.
Vehicular traffic is crossing through the river where the water is "low". A new temporary access road has been built to direct traffic through the crossing. Unfortunately, when we got to the bridge (about 3 pm local time), nobody was daring to cross. It had been raining, in fact it was drizzling when we arrived. This rain, plus the constant raining in the mountains, has raised the Rio Bonito's water level to make it impassible for terrestrial vehicles.
Reports from the Colon area indicate that there is still high water throughout the Aguan Valley, and that a land route into the area is still in the works. This area is one of the areas hardest hit by Mitch, another is the remote area known as La Moskitia - where it is still raining hard. Perhaps there are areas such as Tegucigalpa where the concentration of material goods makes the quantifiable damage seem greater (for example the Lps. 4 million lost in Nike shoes from a warehouse, and the thirty some new Toyota vehicles that were lost from a flooded showroom), whereas the problem with areas such as the Aguan Valley is that they are agricultural, and the damage therefore will be felt until agricultural production and yields are re-established. Overall estimates place the banana operations damages at some 90 % for the Tela Railroad Company (Chiquita Brands), and 75 % loss for Dole Food Company, and at least two years before a decent banana harvest is expected. Tela's operations are in the Sula Valley (where Honduras.com is based) and Dole's operations are in the Aguan Valley. We want to make it perfectly clear to our readers that we do not favor either banana company over the other. Although our emphasis has been on the Tela Railroad Company, this is simply due to geographics, i.e. we are both located in the Sula Valley. Nonetheless, we empathize with those suffering in the Aguan Valley who are still in the midst of their flood problems, they were hit harder by Mitch than we were here in the Sula Valley and we can only imagine how serious the problems are becoming in that area. Electricity and water is still turned off there. Although the local utility company, ENEE, has been working diligently to restore electricity throughout Honduras, they can only hope to restore it to the Aguan valley within the next two weeks. The restoration of these services depends on whether or not repair crews can even penetrate the area to commence reconstruction operations. Right now, the best way in or out of the area is via helicopter.
Honduras.com is also seriously worried about the related health problems that will continue to threaten the country. Malaria and Dengue will proliferate from the moskitos that are starting to come out in droves from the idle standing water. Epidemic outbreaks are a serious threat to the country, and we publicly thank all of the countries that are assisting Honduras to combat this threat. Japan especially needs to be thanked for sending its elite medical team, as well as Mexico for donating equipment, including twenty foggers to treat respiratory ailments. The list goes on and on...a sincere thank you to all of those countries and individuals who are helping Honduras in this time of great need :)
Finally, bilingual schools are scheduled to reopen tomorrow, Wednesday...so they have only missed about one month of classes.
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