Lost In thIn the past few days Hurricane Matthew went past Haiti, Jamaica & the Dominican Republic to push a historic and destructive storm surge to the coasts of northern Florida, Georgia and South Carolina.

The UN Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) preliminary evaluations are ongoing, however, access to other areas remain difficult.

Other NGOs (MDM Argentina, Red Cross Haiti, Action Against Hunger and ADEMA) are evaluating the situation in Nord Ouest, Sud Est, and Centre departments.

The damage in Haiti so far (news update)

• The death toll has now reached 1,000 according to Reuters
• 350,000 people are in need of immediate assistance
• 60,000 people in temporary shelters
• Severe flooding in 11 communes (townships) with significant mudslides and flash floods as well as landslides and damage to roads and infrastructure. The storm has had its biggest impact in rural areas, and so namely the departments of South, Grande-Anse, particularly in the communes of Jérémie and Les Cayes (south), with 75% of homes having lost their roofs.

Other affected areas: Nippes, South East and Western Haiti.

• House damage: Over 29,000 houses destroyed or severely damaged.
• Public infrastructure: The majority of port infrastructures in the Sud Department damaged. Collapse of Petit Goave Bridge has isolated communities in South, Nippes and Grand’Anse.
• Livelihood: Lost harvests with 80% or so estimated. (The World Food Programme)

Please give today, to help us rebuild homes for the most vulnerable families and respond swiftly to the next major disaster.

The impact in Jamaica

• Low level of damage (only affected by rainfall not high winds). The government of Jamaica has made no request for international aid.
• Closing Evacuation Shelters. The reopening of schools because it has been deemed safe to do so.
• This week and next the Jamaican government and USAID will be carrying out damage assessments on which they will base an official recovery plan.

And in Cuba

In the far East of the country severe damages were reported because of poor infrastructure. Sectors severely affected include:

• Housing
• Water and sanitation
• Agriculture
• Fisheries
• Basic social services
• Social and road infrastructure
• Electricity
• Telecommunications, and so on.

Assessing the extent of the damage where we work

The situation in areas where we’ve been running reconstruction projects since the 2010 earthquake is looking much better overall. However standing water due to blocked drainage is posing a serious health risk, mainly the spread of cholera.

Simon Pele

• Corrugated iron sheets on the roofs have suffered light damage. Floods affected a total of 19 houses.
• Stagnant water is also blocking entrance to the Bon Berger School
• Cholera is spreading in the community. Cholera is a high risk.
• Immediate work will include efforts to clear debris and open up drainage ways to rid the community of standing water. We will also work with families who lost the corrugated galavanised iron (CGI) from their roofs
• In order to maximise impact we are working with the community’s new task force which is leading their recovery efforts.

Canaan

Due to stagnant water, Three cases of cholera have been reported In Canaan and health risks are expected to increase in the next few days. Our team in Haiti carried out a joint assessment with American Red Cross, Terre des Hommes, Global Communities, UN Habitat and Mercy Corps.

Overall the damage from hurricane Matthew was very limited in this area where we’ve been rebuilding in the past few years. With only 150 homes out of thousands that were severely damaged. Most of those who were evacuated during the storm are already back in their homes because they have nowhere else to go.

A detailed assessment team comprised of staff from the Red Cross and Habitat will soon be visiting the destroyed and severely impacted homes to determine the amount of work needed. Response work will be quick to aid those severely impacted and shortly after that it will be refocused on reconstruction and development.

Our partners and teams on the ground

Assessing needs is the teams priority. In communities, a response strategy will focus on:

• Water, sanitation and hygiene in order to limit spread of disease.
• Refuse management strategy
• Upgrading the existing housing stock with a strong focus on disaster risk reduction, and so on.

Overall we are still waiting for more information from the impacted areas in order to develop a larger, long term strategy. To do this, we are working on identifying potential partners (local and international) and will support any efforts to coordinate disaster response.

In Jamaica, we will work with our partner families to assist as needed. We will support Heath centres in order to assist the dissemination of ad-hoc Hygiene Promotion Awareness campaign in combination with our disaster response programme,

In the Dominican Republic, we are attending emergency government coordination meetings because this is a priority. The team deployed in the South is gathering information from affected communities in coordination with Oxfam. A hurricane shelter we’ve built in the past is currently hosting 54 people (including 2 persons with disabilities) which could help support calls for more shelters.

Please give today, so that we can rebuild as many homes as possible across the world.

Photo: Logan Abassi UN/MINUSTAH