A Quick Flood/Hurricane Update

Although nearby Leogane suffered severe flooding from the Hurricane (as seen in the above slideshow), O.E.E. is just far enough away (5 miles) that we made it through in relatively good shape. Everyone huddled up in the school classrooms for a big sleepover. The kids had crayons and coloring books for entertainment and were having a great time during most of the whole ordeal. There were some strong wind gusts that picked up and broke one tent and lots of muddy feet, but other than that, we came out of it pretty much unscathed.

After things calmed down a bit, a few of us went into Leogane and we were amazed to the river running at probably 50 to 100 times its normal volume. On most days you could drive a car across the river, but on Friday it was 200-300 ft. wide with gigantic rapids so big that an uprooted tree would disappear from sight as it moved from one to the next.

The streets in Leogane were like literal rivers themselves, making parts of the city inaccessible. The good news was that most of the temporary tarp shelters were still in place because the winds hadn't been as bad as expected, but people were very wet and miserable.