MANSFIELD — As the death climbs over 300 in Haiti in the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew, local missionaries have begun to formulate plans for relief efforts.
Starting Tuesday night and rolling through Thursday, Hurricane Matthew, a Category IV hurricane, swept through numerous Caribbean island nations.
The storm has been reported as the most powerful in nearly a decade, with wind speeds reaching up to 145 mph on Tuesday. Reuters reported Friday Haiti’s death toll has amounted to at least 339.
The storm is expected to continue through the weekend as it sweeps through parts of eastern Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and southern North Carolina.
Berean Baptist Church’s pastor of outreach and missions Steve Storkel said the church works with four pastors throughout the country, assist in leadership in nearly 140 churches and four Christian schools.
One Haitian pastor wrote to Storkel on Wednesday about his plans to provide relief and support to Les Cayes, a small port town on Haiti’s southern Tiburon peninsula.
He wrote the church will be providing local volunteer work to repair roofs in Les Cayes. However, access to the port city in in the southwest peninsula will be tough.
“The major bridge leading the south in Petit Goave has collapsed and will cause a huge handicap to the relief effort,” wrote a pastor from central Haiti.
The Haitian pastor said he was not requesting foreign volunteer work at this time.
“In months to come, that may be possible, but at present we want to help provide stability to those already there,” he wrote.
Marsha Milliron-DeVito, a partner of Loving Shepherd Ministries of Indiana, said buildings in Welsh, a small rural community of Les Cayes, were hit hard.
LSM has worked with Haitians on the Tiburon peninsula to build 18 foster homes, a clinic, a community center and school hybrid, a vocational ranch, and many churches.
“The ranch lost all outside buildings but the chicken coops and the main building survived,” Milliron-DeVito said, adding the ranch’s goats died during the storm but the chickens survived.
She said the LSM families and staff, which include North Americans and nearly 100 Haitians, are safe.
“But the damage is still being assessed,” she said.
LSM President Ed Swartz said Wednesday he is waiting to form a plan until more information is available.
Some media are reporting communication posts in Les Cayes are down. LSM’s pilot, Jan Gutwein, is expected to fly in to Les Cayes Friday from the Dominican Republic, where he stored the mission’s plane through the storm.
Reuters reported Friday the town’s small airport sustained damage to windows and the terminal’s roof was totally missing. The landing strip was not heavily damaged.
Mansfield’s 179th Airlift Wing sent a crew to Haiti in response to the natural disaster.
“In response to Hurricane Matthew, our crew was tasked as a contingency response and sent to Haiti to provide contingency support via personnel and relief supplies to the people of Haiti,” said Command Colonel Dave Johnson in a press release Thursday.
The Pan American Health Organization said Thursday it was preparing for a possible outbreak of cholera following the hurricane. They predicted flooding was likely to contaminate water supplies.
An estimated 7,000 Haitians died in the months following the 2010 earthquake due to cholera infection, according to the CDC.
