1/22/2010
Petit-Goave’s Big Problems
It took two and a half hours to drive just 40 miles from Port-au-Prince to Petit-Goave. The main road there is buckled and cracked wide open in some parts, littered with rocks and boulders in other stretches. The ride was so bumpy, I got nauseous and had to lay down. It quickly became clear why aid is so slow in getting to the bayside town.
Petit-Goave was heavily damaged in the first earthquake and then was the epicenter of the second one that hit Wednesday. However, the town and others like it west of Port-au-Prince have yet to see deliveries of food and water or help in retrieving their more than one thousand dead from beneath piles of cinderblocks and mangled furniture.
There are Red Cross workers on the scene, helping with medical needs. But there were only a handful of them for the town of 170,000. The Deputy Mayor of Petit-Goave says aid agencies are focusing too much on Port-au-Prince and need to start paying attention to hard hit areas in the rest of the country.
The situation in Petit-Goave could get worse before it gets better. Haiti’s rainy season is coming. Locals fear the structures left standing won’t be able to withstand the downpour.And the people too afraid to sleep in them, still don’t have proper tents.