Tuesday 5 April 2016

A tour of the damaged island

On 27th  August 2015, Dominica was hit by storm Erica. In six hours 18 inches of rainfall came down, causing flooding and landslides that washed away whole villages. On a trip with SeaCat, we went up to see Pomme in his garden of Eden and were struck by how the whole course of the river and walk up into the rainforest had been changed. We then drove up to the moonshine village, which had been devastated by the mudslides, the inhabitants are still living in community shelters.
We were very interested to see how the island had been affected and SeaCat was happy to show us, so we set out for a day touring parts of the island we knew from previous visits starting with a hike up to see Pomme in his garden of Eden.







We couldn't believe the change in the walk. The river path through the valley had been totally changed by the huge boulders and mud that had been washed down from the mountains. Luckily we met a neighbour of Pommes who could show us the way through some of the most seriously affected areas. However, at Pommes the plateau high up in the rainforest had escaped unharmed and we spent a few hours chatting with him, before continuing our tour. 







SeaCat then drove us through the worse affected areas, including the village where we had our moonshine tasting session. The village had been hit by a mudslide that had destroyed much of the housing and caused an explosion at the bay leaf distillery. They houses that remained had mud up to the windows and the road was impassable. 







The changes were hard to imagine and seeing it all for ourselves really brought it home to us.

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