In Haiti, a City’s Race Into the 21st Century Is Ruined by a Hurricane

BY   Azam Ahmed    PUB   The New York Times [perfectpullquote align=”full” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=”15″]JÉRÉMIE, Haiti — Things had been looking up in Jérémie, a coastal city marooned on the tip of Haiti’s southern peninsula. It had recently gotten its first decent road link to the rest of the country, a new highway through the rugged mountains that brought development.[/perfectpullquote]
Cellphone service had finally begun, enabling farmers and businesses to flourish. The city was racing into the 21st century, dreaming of advanced agriculture and tourism in one of Haiti’s few nature preserves.

But now, Hurricane Matthew has turned back the clock.

The rich forests and vegetation are now splinters and a saltwater swamp. Roads are blocked with detritus, trees turned to tinder, homes reduced to mounds of stone and rusted tin shards cleaved from roofs. Jérémie’s ambitious economic plans have been eviscerated.

“Instead of going forward, we have to restart,” said Marie Roselore Auborg, the minister for commerce and industry in the Grand Anse department, where Jérémie is the capital. “This storm leveled all of the potential we had to grow and reboot our economy.” [mc4wp_form id=”6042″]

On 4 October 2016, a woman crosses the street in downtown Port au Prince. Hurricane Matthew passed over Haiti today, with heavy rains and winds. While the capital Port au Prince was mostly spared from the full strength of the class 4 hurricane, the western cities of Les Cayes and Jeremie received the full force sustaining wind and water damage across wide areas. (Photo by Logan Abassi UN/MINUSTAH)

Enivens sits on the crumbled blocks that are all remaining of his family’s home after Hurricane Matthew blew through Haiti. (©2016 World Vision, Santiago Mosquera)

A girl lugs buckets of drinking water after the passing of Hurricane Matthew in Les Cayes, Haiti, Thursday, Oct. 6, 2016. Two days after the storm rampaged across the country’s remote southwestern peninsula, authorities and aid workers still lack a clear picture of what they fear is the country’s biggest disaster in years. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery)