Although he is far away, Freddy Muñoz, a Honduran resident of Bushwick, has been following through video calls the evolution of the storm Eta pending his family.
The relatives live in Puerto Cortés, in the north of the country. This Wednesday these were the first words he heard from his sister.
“The water is getting through the floor, the ground is so saturated with water that the water is going inside. Right now we are uploading everything so that her thing is not damaged “, were the words of her sister Erika Valladares.
Erika says that the rains and winds have not stopped during the last 12 hours, to the point that the Honduran authorities issued an indefinite red alert at the national level.
A situation that despairs brother. You feel helpless because you cannot do anything for your loved ones right now.
“Imagine, one here, one thing is to be told and another is to be seeing it and an uncertainty and concern for the lives of those relatives because the material is replaced”, explained Freddy.
Eta made landfall along the Nicaraguan coast as a Category 4 hurricane Tuesday afternoon, but by Wednesday morning it had downgraded to a tropical storm category with 70 mph winds, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Nicaragua was the Central American country that received the greatest impact, with at least three deaths registered, but the destructive force of Eta extended to Honduras where the authorities decreed a red alert and there is at least one death.
The constant rains have also caused landslides.
“There are floods of rivers, right now I was seeing in ceiba, a river was overflowing and it took several houses,” Erika also said.
Gerardo Ayala, who lives in northern Honduras, told us that the rains and strong winds have also left several sectors without electricity and bridges and fallen trees.
“And this makes it difficult to help our people. Yenniffer, believe me that being here in Puerto Cortez right now is very sad, “Ayala said.
Honduran authorities have opened 1,200 shelters to house families in some 132 municipalities.
At the moment all efforts have been aimed at keeping the population safe. The next step will be to assess the severity of the property damage.
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