Hurricane Matthew: Haiti's shantytowns take a pounding

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As morning stirred Tuesday in a rural chunk of Haiti dotted with shacks and shanties, a mega-storm thundered ashore.

Matthew, a Category 4 hurricane, officially made landfall at 7 a.m. local time Tuesday in port town Les Cayes. But for residents sticking it out in the shantytowns in the southwestern tip of the island, the turmoil began the night before as wicked winds and drenching rains pounded their rickety homes.

“The winds are making so many bad noises. We’re just doing our best to stay calm,” Jenniflore Desrosiers told the Associated Press in the coastal town of Port Salut where she hunkered down with her family.

By Tuesday evening it was difficult to assess the specifics of the damage, but one U.N. official indicated the situation in Haiti was dire.

“Haiti is facing the largest humanitarian event witnessed since the earthquake six years ago," said Mourad Wahba, U.N. secretary-general’s deputy special representative for Haiti. "Much of the population is displaced and communication systems are down. At least 10,000 people are in shelter. We’ve received reports of destroyed houses and overflowing hospitals with shortages of buckets and fresh water.

Les Cayes, one of Haiti's major ports that has a population of about 71,000, took a beating. "The situation in Les Cayes is catastrophic," Deputy Mayor Marie Claudette Regis Delerme told Reuters. "The city is flooded, you have trees lying in different places, and you can barely move around. The wind has damaged many houses and taken away their rooftops."

More coverage of Hurricane Matthew

The country's civil protection office said a number of coastal towns flooded and many houses were destroyed. Landslides, downed trees, sheared roofs and power outages were also reported. A local radio station said water was shoulder-high in parts of Les Cayes, the Associated Press reported.

Details were murky because of communications issues, and local reports indicated the storm left the peninsula on the southern coast of Haiti cut off from the rest of the country.

"The river has overflowed all around us," church pastor Louis St. Germain told CNN. "It's terrible... a total disaster."

Haiti Libre reported extensive damage and said more than 9,000 people were displaced.

Milriste Nelson, 65, a farmer in the town of Leogane, told AP his neighbors fled when winds tore the corrugated metal roof from their home. He said his own small yard was littered with fruit he depends on for his livelihood. “All the banana trees, all the mangoes, everything is gone,” Nelson said. “This country is going to fall deeper into misery.”

How residents who lived in the sloping, rural areas would cope was a paramount concern. Many Haitians live in shacks of wood, corrugated steel and even mud, which humanitarian agencies feared would not withstand the onslaught. Others still live in tents, almost seven years after a massive earthquake tore through the nation.

Relief workers on Monday had been on a desperate mission to persuade shantytown residents in Haiti, the Western Hemisphere's poorest country, to evacuate to safety.

Many Haitians in the areas expected to feel the brunt of the storm weren't even aware the worst hurricane in almost a decade was barreling toward them. "You would be amazed at how few people know there's a hurricane coming," said Jessica Pearl of Mercy Corps, a global relief agency trying to reach residents in the more isolated areas of the nation.

John Hasse, director of World Vision, said his agency experienced a similar challenge. "Several schools where we work, we’ve been having our staff go out and talk with community members to tell them to get to solid structures where they will be safe. Yet many people are still saying 'We’re waiting on God' and not making preparations,”' he said.

"We’re expecting a lot of houses to go down because of the poor housing infrastructure in a lot of the rural areas where we work," Hasse said.

Meteorologists feared Haiti would absorb the worst of the storm on its march through the Caribbean. Flooding rains of 10 to 40 inches were expected to lash the countryside and create dangerous mudslides on the deforested land. Showers and storms spawned from Matthew could linger well after Matthew has moved on to Cuba and the Bahamas on Wednesday.

Relief workers said they would be ready once the worst of the storm subsides. "Approximately 400 World Vision staff are prepped and ready to go and start assessing the need and distributing items like tarps, blankets and clean water supplies," Hasse said. "We’re working to get food supplies to distribute as well.”

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