A town in southern Haiti mourns its own as it staggers from Hurricane Melissa’s blow

Devastating floods swept through Petit-Goâve in southern Haiti as Hurricane Melissa unleashed its fury in late October, leaving at least 43 people dead nationwide and a community in mourning. The coastal town bore the brunt of the Category 5 storm’s destruction, with residents caught unawares when the La Digue river overflowed its banks after midnight.

Many victims were asleep when floodwaters surged through the town, sweeping away children, vehicles, and homes. Some residents managed harrowing escapes—one man fled through a window, while a woman clung to a car while holding her child, suffering a severely broken leg in the process.

On Saturday, the community gathered to honor its dead in a solemn ceremony where 18 caskets adorned with vibrant yellow and orange flowers were carried into a public plaza. The small size of many coffins underscored the tragedy’s particular toll on children, with at least 10 young lives lost in Petit-Goâve alone.

“Where is my strength?!” cried Fanile Estinval, dressed in white mourning attire for her two sons who perished in the disaster. “A mother usually doesn’t bury her children,” she lamented. “When I die, who is going to bury me?”

The grief-stricken community’s sorrow is mingled with anger and frustration over what many see as inadequate government response. Residents have organized a protest for Monday along a key highway to demand faster action and increased aid. Many believe the deaths could have been prevented with better planning and infrastructure improvements.

Hurricane Melissa, one of the strongest Atlantic storms in recorded history, also claimed at least 45 lives in Jamaica where it made landfall. However, Haiti faces particularly dire long-term consequences due to its pre-existing vulnerabilities.

Petit-Goâve, once a thriving agricultural community with a bustling commercial center, saw approximately 90% of its farmland washed away by the storm. “It was very devastating,” said Wanja Kaaria, the United Nations World Food Program director for Haiti. “It will take a while to really restore the markets.”

The WFP has distributed food to more than 40,000 people in Petit-Goâve and plans to implement cash transfers soon. However, Kaaria noted a concerning gap in disaster preparedness—for the first time in a decade, the organization was unable to position emergency supplies in southern Haiti ahead of hurricane season due to funding shortfalls. The agency estimates Melissa affected 1.25 million people across Haiti, with 360,000 urgently needing food assistance.

Public health concerns are mounting in the aftermath of the storm. More than 30 suspected cholera cases and six deaths have already been reported in Petit-Goâve alone, according to Boris Matous, UNICEF’s emergency specialist in Haiti. The organization is working to rehabilitate water pumps, install sanitation stations, and establish mobile clinics, but faces significant challenges in reaching isolated areas.

“What is worrying here is that we are talking about areas that are not very easy to access,” Matous explained. The hurricane’s impact compounds Haiti’s existing struggles with poverty, political instability, food insecurity, and gang violence. “This hurricane, this catastrophe, is coming on the top of multiple other crises,” he added.

The storm’s physical toll on infrastructure has been severe, with more than 240 homes damaged or destroyed in Petit-Goâve and hundreds more flooded. Currently, about 100 families remain in temporary shelters, including a hotel and a private home opened by its owner to accommodate those displaced.

Sergile Henry from the nonprofit Project Hope described the heart-wrenching situation of two small children completely alone in a shelter, unable to locate their parents. “It was catastrophic,” he said of Melissa’s impact.

As Haiti struggles to recover from this latest disaster, the international aid community faces the challenge of providing immediate relief while addressing the underlying vulnerabilities that make the nation particularly susceptible to natural disasters.