Hurricane Sandy: Before and After

So.  We had a surprise hurricane this week.  It actually passed Haiti as a Tropical Storm which was more of a rain event.  Or, I should say it is currently passing Haiti as a rain event.  (It's not over yet.)  We got the east side of the storm which packed inches upon inches of rain.

Now, that can be a problem anywhere, but in a country that is 75% deforested, flash flooding and landslides present unique challenges.

How unique?

Here is the river on Wednesday at about 11:00am.

Here it is (same place) a day later.  (About 1:30 pm on Thursday.)

Also worth mentioning-- there has been a constant problem with the river banks eroding whenever it floods (read: rains) in Jacmel.  To help fix that, someone (the government?) has been doing a bunch of work making a wall to reinforce the river bank.  A bit of a bandaid on a bullet wound, eh?  (In their defense, the wall was not yet finished, but yeah, didn't hold the water back so well...)

To quote Steve Concepcion (with Praxis Haiti) on this issue, "This is why attention to the environment matters."