From: Cindy Wilber [mailto:cwilber@stanford.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, July 19, 2005 9:38 PM
To: yucatan list
Subject: Yucatan hurricane update

After  a day of preparation and worry and now two days of clean up, I can send out at least a partial email. Hurricane Emily  hit the Caribbean coast very hard  late Saturday night.  From the newspaper and the radio we know that there was a tremendous amount of damage on that side of the peninsula. 

Here in Chicxulub, many people evacuated to shelters in Merida but we stayed here and sheltered  the neighbors and their pets. We had 16 people, six dogs  and a house full of possessions here.  The  hurricane did not reach us until almost 2:00 am so we made the  most of the forced slumber party.

Starting about 1:45 the leading edge of the  hurricane came through with  very strong gusts of wind.  We did not lose electricity though until morning so we were able to track the  storm on the web and by radio.  The radio  alerts  were broadcast in both Spanish and Maya.

The eye passed directly over us as it left the peninsula but had lost quite a bit of strength by the time it got here. Nevertheless,  lots of trees and electrical poles were down,  crops were ruined, and many people  with traditional  houses lost their thatched roofs. The poorest people  live in shacks put together with bits and peices of building materials and they lost everything.   For the most part though Chicxulub Puerto did not have extensive damage and everyone involved with Proyecto Itzaes is  fine.

We only have one village report so far  (from the village of Cholul) and  damage there was a setback for  people but everyone was relieved that no one  was injured.  Even  the day after a major hurricane,  families showed up with book bags to  exchange books and to talk about  reading and their children.

By  the end of the week we will know more about how the other villages fared in the storm  For certain, crops were lost and this will be hard on the families. Hopefully,  we won't have any more hurricanes this year.

More to come at the end of the week

Cindy

family arriving for books

where book exchange takes place in Ixil

Cindy Wilber
Education Coordinator
Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-5020
tel: 650-327-2277