Puerto Nuevo: Communities Along the Coast Begin to Rebuild

On the levee, overlooking the Lempa River bank in Puerto Nuevo. This area was completely covered with water as theriver breached the levee and flooded the community.

Puerto Nuevo is the second to last community in Tecoluca before land ends and you take a boat through the estuary out to sea.  The roaring Lempa River is less than one kilometer from Puerto Nuevo. A small offshoot of the river runs closer to the community. Today, it is a calm stream. But a week ago, the Lempa River more closely resembled the sea as it rushed through communities, leaving destruction in its path.  

About fifty yards from the water’s edge, a two-meters high wall of earth makes up the levee.  Just on the other side of the levee are fields, small coconut and mango orchards, and then homes. 

Puerto Nuevo is one of the hundreds of rural communities in El Salvador affected by the massive rains and flooding of October 2011.  The community just up the road, Santa Marta, was the first to flood in Tecoluca. When Santa Marta flooded on the first day of the storm as the river broke through the levee, the road to Puerto Nuevo became impassable. From that day on, Puerto Nuevo had no access to the outside world.  

It wasn’t until day five of the rains that the first homes in Puerto Nuevo flooded.  Out of the 63 families that comprise the community, 16 evacuated to the emergency shelter the community built after Hurricane Mitch.  

"The water was up to here," Don Carlos explains. "And rushing, fast."

The real problem, as Don Carlos, the community President explains, was food and supplies.  Community members had no way to leave their community – the water was too high, too fast, too furious for their handful of small, motorless fishing boats – and their own stores of rice, beans, cooking oil and other basic necessities quickly ran out.  After only a few days, the shelves in community stores were empty.  From then on, people in Puerto Nuevo ate tortillas and salt as they waited for the flood waters to recede.

When asked how to people will begin to reconstruct their lives facing such extreme damage and loss, Marixa Amaya of CRIPDES San Vicente shrugged and responded, matter-of-factly, “you start by cleaning out your home.  Then you figure out what little of what you have can be saved, and you wash it and put it out in the sun to dry.”  You just keep going.

Of the 221 Puerto Nuevo residents, all are dependent on agriculture. Nearly all of the corn fields were destroyed, the best crop in years, says Don Carlos.  They hope to be able to work the fields in the dry season; as Amilcar Hernandez of CRIPDES San Vicente says, “you have to take advantage of the tragedy somehow.”  The earth is saturated with water, and that can benefit people as they replant their corn fields, their sustenance.  

Residents and friends of Puerto Nuevo

Government officials estimate that 80,000 tons of basic grains (corn, beans, rice, sorghum) were lost over the ten days of record-breaking rain.  

In neighboring communities, the damage is similar.  In El Coyol, water levels throughout the community reached waist-levels and families spent two weeks in the community La Sabana, on higher ground.  Rancho Grande and Taura, further East and closer to the river, were among the first to evacuate.  

Further North, this was the first time ever that the CRIPDES San Vicente office flooded and that the community, San Carlos Lempa, was forced to evacuate.  On Tuesday, October 25th, as students throughout the country returned to classes, teachers in San Carlos Lempa spent the day hauling furniture, supplies, books and class papers out into the sun to dry.  

Corn Fields Destroyed

A local initiative for commercializing cashew seeds was also flooded, destroying computers and other equipment and putting the harvest at risk.  As the youth who run the factory return to assess the damage, they have hauled dozens of sacks of seeds out onto the road and into the sun, hoping to save some of their hard work.

Esmeralda Villalta, Coordinator of CRSV, emphasized that in their planning for the future, no project or investment that doesn’t have a focus on climate change adaptability and risk management and mitigation should be undertaken.  It isn’t just about building levees or shelters, but doing them right: “If projects don’t have this focus, they will be in vain.” 

Please help SHARE as we accompany communities like Puerto Nuevo rebuild their lives and organize to prevent future disasters.  Donate today.