Monday, September 3, 2007

Thinking of OURSELVES as Hurricane Felix approaches . . .

The Bay Islands of Honduras, including Guanaja, are still in extreme danger, as is the north coast of Honduras. I have heard from several unofficial sources that the islands are being evacuated. They might just mean that they are getting the tourists out, I'm not sure. Evacuating the entire population of the islands would be a daunting task!

But the storm track has moved a bit to the south, and if that trend continues we in the mountains could find ourselves with some nasty weather. For us, personally, we don't consider the danger from the storm to be very great. We are far from the coast, and we are not in an area which suffers severely from floods and mudslides.

Our greatest concern is that the roads between us and the major cities may be significantly damaged, through road washouts, landslides, floods, and destroyed bridges. If the infrastructure of Honduras is severely damaged, this will certainly affect us.

Right at this moment, we have a visiting team, and we are working to make certain that they will be able to return home safely. For us to be stuck in Gracias for several weeks isn't a major ordeal . . . but the team is really expecting to get to their homes sooner than that!

The team flew into the airport in San Pedro Sula, and they are due to fly back from there on Friday. The storm will be long past on Friday, but will the roads between Gracias and San Pedro Sula still be traversable? We just can't possibly know this.

So, we are working with the Missionary Ventures office to create a plan for the possible evacuation of these 14 people. We may be able to drive them over the mountains to Guatemala or El Salvador, so that they can fly back to the US from one of those locations.

As of this afternoon, we are in wait-and-see mode. A determination will likely be made tomorrow morning, about whether or not we will evacuate the team.

We would certainly appreciate prayers for the team and for our family, as we get through this situation. Also, please remember the Hondurans who are likely to be affected more directly by this storm.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Trish,

We will keep you in our prayers, and will continue to look for posts from you through out the week.

God bless,

Jill Fowler,
Grace Church, Orange Park, FL

Anonymous said...

Trish,
Keep us updated on how you all are doing. We're praying for you.

Love,
Pam, Nelson & kids

Southern Latitudes said...

Keeping you and your fellow Hondurans in our prayers.

Trish said...

Thank you all for your prayers - we appreciate them very much! I will try to keep updating here, as long as my connection stays on.