The worst impact from Hurricane Tomas appears to be focused on Southern Haiti, where World Concern helps farmers and schools. World Concern country director Christon Domond says about 10,000 people have fled their homes – or in many cases – tents.
Humanitarian organization World Concern has tarps and 2,000 hygiene kits in place in southern Haiti, which will go to those most affected by the storm. Another 1,000 kits are ready in Port au Prince. (You can donate to help with this.)
In the past few days, Haiti’s government has been telling people to get out of high-risk areas in Haiti, including low-lying camps for the homeless. They’ve uses text messaging and megaphones to get the message out. What’s so frustrating: the people at greatest risk have nowhere to go.
I spoke with Jillian Thorp today, our emergency program support manager, and she said it was heartbreaking to see that there were no good options for these families.
“They are saying, ‘If I had friends or family with houses intact, I would already be there. I wouldn’t be in a tent,’” Jillian said.
Haiti’s hurricane season was supposed to end 5 days ago. Someone – tell the weathr to pay attention to the calendar!
Understandably, these thousands of poor families are weary after living for almost a year homeless after the earthquake. Though Haitians are resilient, they are only human.
“People are tired,” Jillian said. “ They are exhausted at having to fend for themselves and to survive, and to always be in that survival mode. Not knowing what lies ahead is exhausting.”
This hurricane has caused a lot of flooding and devastating muslides already, and as the rain continues to fall, it will get worse.
We hope and pray this is the worst storm that Haiti earthquake survivors will have to endure this year.
Learn more about our response.
Help us respond with tarps and hygiene kits.
