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REBUILDING LIVES
Reconstructing the Dominican Republic after Hurricane Georges
>> Rebuilding Lives Photo Exhibit >> Rising to the Challenge
RISING TO THE CHALLENGE
USAID and Hurricane Reconstruction
Americans have responded quickly and generously whenever major natural disasters have struck around the world.
During the late 1990s, the number of natural disasters that USAID responded to increased dramatically. In September and October 1998, two Category 5 hurricanes with winds of up to 180 mph struck the Caribbean (Georges) and Central America (Mitch), causing over $8.5 billion in damages, 9,000 deaths, and displacing millions of people. The U.S. government responded with nearly $1 billion in relief and reconstruction assistance.
USAID and the Department of Defense immediately provided over $300 million in emergency relief supplies such as food, water, shelter, health care, transportation, and other critical emergency assistance, chiefly through private voluntary organizations (PVOs). In May 1999, the U.S. Congress appropriated $621 million for the Central America and the Caribbean Emergency Disaster Recovery Fund to begin the reconstruction phase.
Under USAID's leadership, 13 U.S. agencies sought to complete the reconstruction program by December 31, 2001. Never before had foreign assistance programs been challenged to design and complete so many normally time-consuming programs in such a short period of time.
The reconstruction plans called for repairing or building 3,000 kilometers of roads; 14,000 homes; 2,500 classrooms; 327 health facilities; and more than 40,000 water and sanitation facilities for more than 1.6 million people.
Plans called for rehabilitating or constructing 56,000 hectares of watershed; 11,000 hectares of farmland; 235 kilometers of dikes, river bank improvement and drainage ditches; and 200 kilometers of electric power lines. They called for financing or assisting 89,000 microentrepreneurs and 127,000 farmers.
Behind each figure is a life improved and a community restored. Plans also included establishing flood warning systems in five countries, training 1,200 communities in disaster mitigation techniques, and upgrading the national disaster management agencies in six countries. Most importantly, all the work was completed by December 31, 2001, except for a few activities in Honduras, the most devastated of all the affected countries.
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Last Updated on: March 11, 2002 |
