The Oct. 2005 Flood

Read what I wrote Oct. 4th through the 10th.

The Hurricane Stan Flood

Dec 12, 2005

I read what I wrote two months ago and it sounds intense, perhaps over the top. Be that as it may, I think I will leave well enough alone. It was intense. Looking back on it I feel as if I had walked away unscathed from a bad car wreck. It could have been much worse.

Flood walls built fifty years ago and beefed up within the last four or five years, worked quite well. Virtually all the damage done in Panajachel was done within the flood plane. Unfortunately there were quite a few people living in the flood plane.

Why, you ask, were people allowed to build there in the first place? Good question. The only answer I can give is that Guatemala is not Switzerland. There was simply no way to prevent it.

None of the hotels in around the lake suffered any serious damage. The roads are open. Now all we need is for business to get back to normal, which it should be by the end of the month. Life goes on.

Oct. 12, 2005

It's been a long week, but life goes on. Most bridges are still out, hundreds are homeless and mud is everywhere. But temporary bridges have been, or soon will be, installed. Rebuilding has begun and the mud needs to be cleaned up.

There were people who acted bravely, some were cowards. Many dove in and did everything they could to help. Some did nothing. A few (a very few) took advantage of the situation (and I hope they rot in hell), but the vast majority did not.

The government did a reasonably good job of getting emergency supplies in and distributed. INGUAT (the Guatemalan Tourism Institute) did a great job of getting the tourists out. Rebuilding is progressing faster than I would ever have imagined.

On the whole (at least here in Panajachel) people coped with a bad situation as best they could, and there is a lot to be said for that.

Photos can be clicked on to see larger.

Life goes on.

The day before...

...a couple of days later.

On the left is the bridge I used every day to get to and from the center of town. I took this photo because I had never seen the river so high. Over night the water rose another two meters. The next morning the bridge was gone.

They have built a new bridge out of logs and some of boards. It's not ideal, but it'll do, and after all this is how the Mayans crossed this river since long before the Spanish came.

Silverio Quiche back in business.