Flood Damage

I realize there is much greater crisis in Haiti and that many of you probably have stories to tell about the Christmas blizzard, but here's what happened over here December 24 - the night my meditation takes place when we were stranded because of flooding.

First the water from three different streams overflowed the top of this dam (right) and the hill higher than it near Ifrane. There are all kinds of rumors as to why this happened, most of them blaming the people in charge of the dam. This is always the problem in a place where we live off of rumors and have almost no printed or official information! What seems to be the case, though, is that it could not have been prevented.

Then the water came tearing down through the palace grounds, overfilling the lake, and onto the other side of the road where it tore up sidewalks and roads. This part has already been repaired but there was a 3-ft drop where the gravel is now. Notice the height of the cut in the road at the back of the picture. This is where a brother of a friend of ours was killed. He jumped off the top of his truck as the water was rising and his body has not yet been found.

Then through the woods - this is normally almost all grass (this picture is actually taken after a smaller flood from last week. The December 24 flood was much worse).

Then it broke about 20 feet of the wall you see at the top, uprooting two huge trees and changing the shape of the waterfall. It continued down to the village below where the water poured over the cliffs like a waterfall where there had never been one before. A shepherd who went out looking for his sheep has not been found since that day.

On a different road, this is the place that blocked our way December 24. The water broke the wall and ran over the road, cutting it in two places.

Yesterday we went to a village affected by the flood about 25 minutes away where all the water ended up. There used to be a road connecting the left side of the picture to the bridge at the right.

The hole in the sewer pipe in the center is causing the sewage to mix with the spring/drinking/cooking/washing water. The government in the area seems to not have any concrete plans to fix this, so we (Christian community with AUI) are trying to figure out how to get this fixed first. Note the trees in the back with trash at the top of them and the mudline on the building in front, giving you an idea of how high the mud/water came.

This lady is still cleaning out her house. Two houses fell in this village and many were filled with mud ruining everything. It was overwhelming to have little ladies with so little left offering us tea over and over again. One lady actually tried pulling me into her house - and for such a little thing, I was shocked at how much strength she had!

There used to be a house there. This village was interesting. There were mud homes right next to concrete homes which fared much better. We felt humbled and overwhelmed walking through the streets past people begging us to come to their home and see their damage, hoping for amazing results from these rich foreigners.

Overall, there were 12 homes completely destroyed in this area, and 83 which filled with mud ruining all the possessions. We've heard that 30,000 hectors of land have been flooded and countless trees have been cut down or uprooted. Many roads and small bridges have been washed away meaning everyone from cars to school children still cannot get to where they need to be.

Later, we were told we needed to reprot to the Quieed's office (a sheriff in charge of the entire area affected). Even though we went with a government representative, he was angry that the representative didn't tell him about it. He was worried that foreigners would make him look bad by offering to help and acting like the government had not done anything. It would bring shame on them. (This why, earlier, Karen had been told that there were absolutely no needs and that everyone was fine!) Then he proceeded to show us an entire power point of all the places he had visited and all the food and blankets distributed. We assured him that he was doing a fine job, but that, as neighbors, we wanted to help too. We also explained that in a crisis in America, the government expects others to come and help too. He seemed pacified by this and off we went after promising to work together with him.