Flying over Gonaïves, I am taken back to September 2004: it is almost four years to the day. In 2004, it was Tropical Storm Jeanne; two weeks ago, it was Tropical Storm Hanna - in both cases, storms that followed massive hurricanes. It’s the same city, yet some things are different this time. Today I am arriving in a UN helicopter; back then I was in a 4×4 driving through the lake that had become Route Nationale #1 (incidentally, that lake had just about dried up before Hanna hit).

More than 3,000 people lost their lives to Jeanne, as a wall of water swept through the streets of Gonaïves in the middle of the night in 2004. This time, thankfully, that number is much lower. “The number of lives lost is much less this time,” Oxfam’s Max Astier explained. “Unlike with Jeanne, the people of Gonaïves had time to react to Hanna.  The floodwaters began to rise in the middle of the afternoon and people were able move to higher ground before the water could gain strength as it rose. And don’t forget, the people of Gonaïves have not forgotten Jeanne.”

While there are differences between then and now, unfortunately there are also numerous similarities.  Everywhere you look, people of all ages are flinging mud out of their homes and businesses, armed with whatever they can find to use as a makeshift shovel, trying to salvage whatever they can. The same naked mountains envelope the city and stagnant water, thick mud and piles of destroyed personal belongings line the streets. As we drive through one neighbourhood, I hear a man singing. I turn to see who it is, to find an elderly man struggling to remove the sludge from him damaged home. He sees me and smiles and keeps on working.

As I walk up to an informal shelter (the building of a neighbourhood construction supply business), I am greeted by a group of women washing at a water pump in the yard. Despite the obvious despair they must be feeling, they smile warmly at me and tell me: “We are hanging in there, by the grace of God

we are still here and we are hanging in there.” They accompany me to the roof of the two-storey building, from where I can get a better view of their neighbourhood - still full of water and knee-high with mud. “The second rains did the most damage,” said Theresa Jean, a 40 year-old mother of three. “It started raining at 4 o’clock in the afternoon and by 9 or 10 o’clock we were in trouble.  The water was so high and my child was so afraid, I had to carry him over my head as I waded through the water to come here.”  Her friend Anne Sejours adds, “My four children and I have absolutely nowhere to go now.”

According to Oxfam’s ongoing assessment in the city, there are close to 100 formal shelters along with the numerous unidentified, informal shelters that have also been established, like the one I visited. An estimated 50,000 people are currently housed in these. Oxfam has completed full assessments in more than 55 of the formal shelters in Gonaïves and has begun distributions of water and non-food item kits in selected ones, as the first part of an integrated intervention in the shelters.

More from the Oxfam Press Office at http://www.oxfam.org.uk/news