Cory's Agricultural hurricane observations and pictures

Near Cayes A few coconut and banana somehow escaped major damage.

On the second trip, it was good to see how fast the banana plants were re-growing in the generally fertile, well soaked gardens. Heavy rains continued to soak the South peninsula, causing suffering for those without adequate shelter, but many of the gardens and trees were recovering rapidly.

Looking on the positive side, there is a huge amount of wood on the ground to be made into lumber and charcoal to help with short-term income for the owners.

In the fertile, partly irrigated plain North and West of Les Cayes, many of the gardens looked good. Pigeon pea dies where flooded but some wasn't blown over too badly and was recovering partly.

Start of hills Southwest of Cayes

Cassava can blow down and still produce well, rice was in excellent condition and ready to head. Not a lot of corn but it looked OK and some tasseling.

Near Torbeck

Sweet potato appeared fine and we saw peanut fields near maturity that looked good and a trailer with freshly harvested peanut still on the vine. The hills were eroded and many trees and coconut palms down.

 Breadfruit will sprout from broken roots and some of the coconuts are OK but further west damage is more severe and it will take years for the fruit trees to recover.

We only went as far as the base of the small mountains west of Les Cayes.

Torbeck Wesleyan with new roof

 Overall we were relieved to see that even as far West as Cayes, not everything was lost, contrary to some of the reports we heard. The way the mountains funnel the winds seems to be an explanation of how damage was so variable.

Some areas around Petit Goave, far to the East, looked almost as bad as some areas in the large agricultural plain area of Cayes, not very far from where the eye of the storm passed.

Almost stuck, made it after a few tries.

 Photos from distribution area West of Cayes near the mountains:

Peanut garden