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Panama News Briefs

Two-burner stove kits and tanks of cooking gas for 300 households were among the supplies gathered at the former Howard Air Force Base and ferried by US Army helicopters to those left homeless in isolated rural communities by recent floods and storm surges. Photo courtesy of the US Embassy

Flood assistance comes from local residents, foreigners

by Eric Jackson

Late November and the first part of December are usually the wettest weeks of rainy season, and even though mid-Pacific water temperatures tell us that we are into an El Niño year that may give us a drought in a few months, we received plenty of rains as November ended. We also got some colder than usual temperatures and some unusual heavy winds. The results were dramatic.

In the last week of November heavy rains and storm surges drowned at least 11 people, washed away four bridges, toppled utility towers, caused landslides, caused three ships at anchor off of Colon to come loose from their moorings and run aground and left nearly 100 communities in Colon, Kuna Yala, Panama Oeste and Cocle isolated. There was also some serious flooding east of the capital in the Chepo area. More than 400 homes were damaged or destroyed, leaving nearly 1,500 people homeless.

In the face of the disaster people in Panama and both our national and foreign governments came to the rescue.

At Parque Omar the First Lady’s Office and the SINAPROC disaster relief agency collected food and other supplies from Panama residents. The US Army sent in helicopters and crews to rescue people cut off by flood waters and ferry supplies to isolated communities. The Japanese sent in generators, tents, mattresses and water purification equipment. Among the items donated by the US government, USAID bought 300 two-burner stoves and tanks of cooking gas on the local market so that the displaced people could cook their own meals and where necessary boil their drinking water.

A lot of Panamanian politicians rushed to the scenes of the devastation, but tended to go light on the contrived photo ops and facile promises. Housing Minister Balbina Herrera forthrightly told people who lost their homes that were built in flood plains that the ministry would help them with new housing solutions but would not spend any money to rebuild homes in vulnerable areas.

The worst of the bridge washouts, the destruction of the relatively new concrete and steel bridge at the mouth of the Rio Indio, left part of Colon’s Costa Abajo inaccessible by road and in the face of that the US helicopters proved invaluable. The Americans not only brought food and fresh water to villages whose supplies were destroyed or contaminated, but also served as an airborne ambulance service, taking two women who were going into labor and a boy with a kidney ailment to hospitals in the capital.