Living in Honduras–IRR Style

Hello all! The past couple of days have been quite interesting. First the Patriots lost to the Giants, in one of the closest games that I have ever seen. Second, we have started on our disaster plan for the Isle de Utila. On Sunday we spent most of the day translating the existing plan that the island had into English, which turned out to be nothing more than a copy of a plan from the mainland of Honduras, so we are simplifying it and adding parts to it to make it more personal for the island. The idea was to make recommendations to the mayor and leave it up to the government to implement our ideas, On Monday, our team of 20 people split up into groups of about 4 people each and we each took a section to research and come up with ideas. These sections include: Water, Transportation/Evacuation, Shelters/Sewage, and Communication. Personally I was on the building/sewage group, since I have some experience in that area. We rented a golf cart and toured the four schools and 2 churches that are designated shelters above tidal surge levels. As for our findings, we found that the buildings themselves are sound structures that would be able to withstand hurricane force winds. The only issue was the fact that the bathroom facilities are inadequate for the amount of people that would need to shelter there, plus there is obviously no shower facilities either. We also noted that these structures were not very close to the local clinic which is nearly a must have, but we have to work with what is there. We then compiled our research and got together as a group and came up with some recommendations to improve on the happenings during an emergency event.

Today we met with the mayor of Utila and he answered a few of our questions and when presented with our recommendations he was quite excited and eager to hear what we had to say. At the end of the meeting he let us pray with him. So now we are going to write up a plan and present it at a meeting next Monday to the other community members, so pray for us if you would! That is the news so far in that subject.

Tomorrow everyone is going to start their dive rescue portion of the classwork, as for me I will be helping out where I can. Pray that everyone stays safe out there…Thats all for now!