In pictures: Haiti's post-hurricane relief effort underway
Many communities in southwest Haiti are cut off due to Hurricane Matthew and are desperately in need of food. Miami businessman Michael Capponi spent three days flying around Haiti to inspect storm damage and deliver food to survivors in the devastated hillsides outside the city of Jeremie. He sent us these photos.
Capponi (left) is the founder of Global Empowermwent Mission, created as a response to the Haiti earthquake in 2010. Global Empowerment Mission delivered food and water to remote communities in the hillsides near Jeremie where the eye of Hurricane Matthew passed over.
Foto: Brandon Burke/Danielle Dreis/Global Empowerment Mission | Univision
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Towns in southwest Haiti were devastated by the hurricane, with roofs blown off and many homes totally destroyed.
Foto: Brandon Burke/Danielle Dreis/Global Empowerment Mission | Univision
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The erosion of the hillsides from swollen rivers flooded into the sea staining it brown.
Foto: Brandon Burke/Danielle Dreis/Global Empowerment Mission | Univision
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Where to deliver relief supplies? A plane, a helicopter and a pick up is the only way to reach some cut off communities in southwest Haiti.
Foto: Brandon Burke/Danielle Dreis/Global Empowerment Mission | Univision
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Capponi flew to Jeremie and they drove into the hillsides to deliver food aid.
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Capponi met with local officials and police to identify the communities most in need. "Monetary donations to the proper trusted and proven Haiti expert specific NGO's is going to be the quickest way of supporting this in the immediate,"he argues. "Be sure to see their financials to verify that no money is wasted on overhead and unnecessary expenses, people got burned once, never again," he adds, in reference to the 2010 earthquake response. "These pictures will attest that any proper dedicated teams can actually get to remote areas and deliver supplies within days. This needs to be a hands on approach in this current stage."
Foto: Brandon Burke/Danielle Dreis/Global Empowerment Mission | Univision
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The supplies were offloaded from the plane to a pickup.
Foto: Brandon Burke/Danielle Dreis/Global Empowerment Mission | Univision
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Loaded and ready to depart.
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... for miles and miles, this is what Matthew left behind.
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.... a wasteland. "I can honestly say it looks just as bad as the 2010 earthquake in some areas," said Capponi. What's much much worse, is the entire landscape, palm trees and agriculture fields are completely desolated. All the newly planted trees are mostly gone in the south west coast."
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The roads are blocked by mud and broken trees. "We were able to get approximately 18-25 miles outside Jeremie," Capponi said.
Foto: Brandon Burke/Danielle Dreis/Global Empowerment Mission | Univision
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People are waiting for the roads to clear so that food trucks can deliver aid.
Foto: Brandon Burke/Danielle Dreis/Global Empowerment Mission | Univision
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"We were fortunate to have a God-sent Caterpillar to help us get through," said Capponi. But it could take days, if not weeks to reach some areas. "We wanted to go from Jeremie to Les Anglais where there is even more catastrophic destruction but that was absolutely impossible. The next attempt was getting to Dame-Marie. That is also absolutely impossible. The roads are knee to waist high deep muddy swamps at every corner."
Foto: Brandon Burke/Danielle Dreis/Global Empowerment Mission | Univision
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After several days without food or clean water residents are growing desperate.
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They rush to the pickup to get food. "You will see by these pictures, how just any aide or supplies can make an entire village rejoice. You will also notice how people would run to our truck begging for just anything to eat."
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This was already a poor farming region. Most people barely survive on subsistence farming.
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The desperationn is visible is people's faces. In the Haitian countrysdie most people live in extreme poverty (less than $2 a day).
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Hands outstretched they gratefully receive the little that the pickup can carry.
Foto: Brandon Burke/Danielle Dreis/Global Empowerment Mission | Univision
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Smiles abound, despite the humanitarian crisis around them.
Foto: Brandon Burke/Danielle Dreis/Global Empowerment Mission | Univision
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People line up for bags of rice and canned food.
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Children are the most needy, and the most grateful.
Foto: Brandon Burke/Danielle Dreis/Global Empowerment Mission | Univision
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"We were the first and only responders to some of these remote villages outside of Jeremie. There it's not 1 out of 3 homes destroyed but 3 out of 3 homes destroyed. Many homes had so much debris in them that we would have no way of knowing how many dead people were trapped under the fallen roofs etc."
Foto: Global Empowerment Mission/Brandon Burke and Danielle Dreis
| Univision
Mothers struggle daily to feed their children - on a good day. "Our biggest fear is how long could injured starving children survive without aide in remote areas. It's now been 5 days and we are still days away from even getting to these areas," said Capponi.
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This mother is smiling now that she has somethign to feed her child.
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Some remote communities hit by Matthew have yet to be reached.
Foto: Brandon Burke/Danielle Dreis/Global Empowerment Mission | Univision
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The official death toll in Haiti from Matthew, initially reported at 271, could reach as high as 1,000, making it the worst natural disaster in the country since a 2010 earthquake rocked the capital, Port-au-Prince, killing more than 200,000 people.
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"The entire south west tip of Haiti is similar or much worst as you get closer to the areas of direct impact," said Capponi.
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"Our biggest fear is how long could injured starving children survive without aide in remote areas. It's now been 5 days and we are still days away from even getting to these areas."
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"Jeremie's electrical company is completely broken, there are broken electrical poles and lose wires everywhere. We anticipate it will be hard to get power to that region for a while.
Foto: Global Empowerment Mission/Brandon Burke and Danielle Dreis. | Univision
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The rebuilding has already begun. As a result of the storm there is plenty of spare wood lying on the ground to help build new roofs.
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There is a huge amount of rebuilding to do. Haitian hoerms are simple structures so can be rebuilt fast. But many people have lost their savings and have no money to rebuild.
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Wood and metal sheet are in vital need to repair roofs all over southwestern Haiti.
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This man is loading metal roofing onto the back of his motorcycle.
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Others gather scrap metal for their roofs.
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In pictures: Haiti's post-hurricane relief effort underway
