Disaster is Different Around The purpose of this paper is to show the difference between the way the United States faces a disaster and the way Central America handles a disaster. In 1992 we faced the costliest hurricane to hit the United States in history. In 1998 Central America was rocked by fourth strongest hurricane ever. Though both were huge disasters our perception of a hurricane might be a little different than someone living in Latin America.As previously stated, Central America was hit by a train. And this train had a name.Mitch. The storm was formed off the coast of Africa and gained strength in the open ocean. When Mitch came ashore on October 29th it had sustained winds of 180mph and unknown gust velocity. It crept slowly inland and dumped record amounts of rainfall in a short period of time. The countries most effected by the hurricane were ; Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Belize. As of December 2, 1998 the number of confirmed deaths was 5,642 with 8,050 still missing. People injured in the storm counted 12,272. Over 1,199,000 people were displaced. With more than 100,000 homes destroyed (UN Situation Report par.9). Over 2,000 people were swept away by mudslides on the Casitas volcano when in one week in October more rain fell than in the previous three years combined. Governments were overwhelmed by the need of supplies. The cost to Honduras alone was well over 4 billion dollars. With over 70% of the food crops destroyed help was needed very badly, but with communication down and 90% of roads washed away it was hard to supply villages deep inland (USAToday online #1 par. 14). When the Hurricane first came ashore there was very little anyone could do but hold on to something, anything. No place was safe. Central American countries are some of the poorest in the world and a hurricane proof shelter is hard to find. Most people grabbed what they could and headed for the hills. That i...
