Haiti One Month Later

Congressman Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) writes about his recent trip to earthquake-ravaged Haiti as a part of a congressional delegation:

As weather paralyzed the nation’s capital with record snowfall, scrambling schedules and disrupting plans, I was able to participate in a short, one-day trip to Haiti. Normally I would think twice about the usefulness of spending less than six hours on the ground in a country, but my deep personal concerns about Haiti made it worth the travel.

Haiti clearly looks bad, but worse problems lurk off the radar and are obvious to anyone who pays attention to the dry land and environmental devastation. The first hints are noticeable from the air — the stark difference between the Dominican Republic half of the island, still verdant green with tree cover, and Haiti’s virtually denuded hillside, not just around the city but extended up to the very tops of the mountain. The Congressional CODEL I traveled with was told that the forest, which used to cover 80% of Haiti, has been reduced to 2%; I couldn’t help but wonder where, exactly, that 2% is. Further evidence of the erosion was the river and stream beds that reveal the underlying chalk white limestone residue, a reminder that spring rains — without hearty soil to provide absorption — will unleash even more catastrophe.

After just a few minutes on the ground, I was overwhelmed by the magnitude and randomness of the destruction. What I witnessed right after the tsunami in Southeast Asia and after Katrina in New Orleans had a much more distinct pattern.

Continue reading at The Huffington Post.

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