La Inundata (The Flood)

Most of you know about the floods here as a result of e-mails and/or phone calls, but, primarily because I'm bored and suffering from near-terminal cabin fever, I'll spend a little time summarizing the situation and bringing everyone up to date.

According to locals, this is the worst flood to hit Chiriqui and Bocas del Toro in over 40 years. Although we routinely get very heavy rains here, most of it comes from the Pacific in short-lived torrents which wash quickly down the rivers and out to the ocean. This front, however, was in the Caribbean and has lingered well over a week. The Telemanca Mountains, behind our house, lie between the Province of Chiriqui and the Province of Bocas del Toro, a series of islands in the Caribbean off Panama's north coast. (Remember, Panama runs east to west, not north to south like most Latin American countries.) Prolonged rains in the moutains resulted in catastrophic amounts of water running downhill, into the rivers of Chiriqui. Thus, the flooding.

The Caldera River flows out of the mountains and through the Town of Boquete. The northernmost bridge over the Caldera is the one just north of the historic Panamonte Hotel and is on the main route to Palo Alto, where we live. When the Panamonte Bridge (barely a year old) collapsed from flood waters and rocks, it formed a semi-dam which flooded the roadway to its east, which leads to our house, and completely undermined a brand new hotel there, La Ladera, prominently featured in the flood photos. Had only the bridge been destroyed, we would have had access to the new bridge next to the fairgrounds, accessed by the same road. Fortuitously, that bridge, which has been under construction for over a year, opened the day before the flood. Otherwise, all of north Boquete would have been completely cut off because the only other bridge serving our area, which lies at the other side of the Palo Alto/Alto Lino loop, also was so badly damaged as to prevent vehicular traffic. To get to the new Fairgrounds Bridge, however, involves a long trip in four-wheel drive up through Jaramillo, over a very rough dirt road made even rougher by the rain, and down a disintegrating paved road which forms part of the Jaramillo loop. It is this harrowing, treacherous trip that Larry has made several times over the last five days to get food for us (from dwindling supplies) and gasoline for the generator.

We have a reserve water tank, but the pump requires electricity. We have a generator, but the generator requires gasoline. So our principal source of stress has been access to town to acquire gasoline. That stress has been alleviated. The good news is that water was restored late Tuesday and electricity late yesterday morning. While it clearly will take a long time to replace the Panamonte Bridge, heavy equipment is on site redirecting the flow of the Caldera River and clearing the roadway to the Fairgrounds Bridge. And we just received news within the last hour from friends Jane and Barry that Los Naranjos Bridge, at the other end of the Palo Alto/Alto Lino loop, has been sufficiently repaired to allow cars to cross.

We felt much better, of course, once water and then power were restored, but then cabin fever set in. Our house suffered no damage, but the garden is a wreck. But with the continued rains and intermittent winds, there's nothing we can do. Because the authorities are limiting access to the area to residents, Demaris and Juvenal haven't been with us this week, and Edwin, although he lives in our area, wouldn't have been able to get much done with unceasing rain. (He did make the trip up to check on us, however, which we appreciated, and has called every day--even though he and his family were experiencing the same deprivations.) Having been busy almost constantly since we moved into the house, this situation has left us totally unprepared to do nothing. I told Larry today that I feel "retired" for the first time; and I don't like it much.

There are so many people displaced and so much charity work going on, but it's been headed up by persons in parts of town not so stranded. Luckily, many gringos live in areas of Boquete that didn't suffer significantly, and, judging from e-mail accounts, have done heroic work with all the people in shelters. We did manage to donate food and pillows and blankets on one of Larry's trips to town, but we haven't been able to be in the thick of things because of fears that we wouldn't be able to get back home. Bocas del Toro has had even more severe problems because the long road between David and Almirante, by which all their supplies are delivered, was heavily damaged by floods and landslides and may take up to three months to repair. The latest news is that fuel and food are being brought in via helicopter.

We had sausage and bean soup for Thanksgiving today, and I'm going to put up the Christmas tree over the weekend just to have something to do. By the first of the week, surely the rain will have stopped and we can get down to the business of cleaning up and seeing what we can do to help others.

Terremoto and more

I've been reading a novel, Company of Liars, set in the middle ages which contains, at the end, a glossary of medieval terms used in the book. Among them is "hue and cry," which is explained as follows: "The first person to discover a robbery or a body was legally obliged to raise the hue and cry--in other words, sound the alarm and rouse his neighbors. On hearing this, all able-bodied men had to start hunting down the perpetrator. Failure to comply with this law meant heavy fines for the individual and often the whole community."

There was quite a hue and cry when we experienced a terremoto night before last. Although it sounds like a monster in a Japanese horror flick, it is, in fact, an earthquake. It was our first since moving here (although we did experience a tremor on a visit), and it was a good one: 6.3 on the Richter scale. The four of us, including the dogs, were sleeping peacefully when, at 1:10 a.m., we were awakened by a bodacious noise and the violent shaking of the house. I knew immediately what it was, but Larry, easily disoriented at any time and especially so when yanked from sleep, managed to stub his toe and bang his hand against something as he first ran in circles and then to the front door, suspecting an attempted break-in. Not that I was the cool head of reason, mind you. I, too, leapt out of bed and ran a few circles, not knowing anything else to do. Just as during the real attempted break-in right after we moved in, the dogs never emerged from under the covers. They raise a great hue and cry at any and every little thing out of the ordinary during the day, but sleep apparently is sacrosanct. I'm convinced we could be murdered in our beds without so much as a peep out of them.

In any event, it lasted a purported 20 seconds, with a 4.7 aftershock of a few seconds, but it seemed more like five or ten minutes. And it was at least 30 minutes before we calmed down and ascertained that the house was still standing and that we both were alive and relatively unscathed, but for Larry's hand and toe. There appears to have been no damage, and we surely would know since it's been raining steadily for the past 48 hours. A gringo friends who has lived here for six years says it was by far the worst she has experienced.

On a happier note, the waterfall and fish pool are finally done. We have begun planting around it but will wait a while for it to settle before adding plants and fish to the water. It'll be lovely once its draped in vegetation, and the sound of the waterfall is lovely even now.

Doc, Charly, and Ramon have filled the holes in their hearts with TWO puppies, a black female and blonde male, cocker spaniels. Rafael and Mathilda are precious and have put smiles back on their faces.

Randy and Maryellen have returned. We celebrated Saturday night with a big dinner here, preceded and followed by football on t.v. My visa for China finally came through, and I've made all the necessary reservations--hotel in New Orleans, dinner in New Orleans, airport parking, airport pickup in China, etc. We'll be doing Thanksgiving here next week, after which Larry insists that I put up the Christmas tree before taking off. Charly and Maryellen are in charge of Christmas dinner inasmuch as I don't return to Boquete until Christmas eve.