Floods of 2010

On Mother's Day (celebrated December 8th in Panama) Maje experienced the worst flooding in the history of the community. Every five years or so, the water level rises to a level that comes close to some of the lower built house and makes for a much shorter walk to the boat. In this instance the water reached this level and it just kept raining...

and raining...

and raining...

The water level is controlled by a hydroelectric dam on the other side of the lake. From what I can tell, the operators of the dam delayed in opening the flood gates too long, and by the time they realized the level the lake was at, opening the gates would have flooded the communities below the dam, so they waited more, and it kept raining...

and raining...

and raining...

The rain reached the critical level on the dam, and the dam operators (pardon my French) were forced to open the flood gates and everything downstream was immediately covered with 20 ft. of water, including the Panamerican Highway, the only road that services the eastern half of Panama. The Eastern provinces were faced with a food shortage, thousands of acres of rice were lost, and in total 10 lives were lost. I was evacuated and a portion of my daring escape can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRccF7dWGdI . Note the large body of water we are crossing is the Interamerican Highway.

Talking to friends in Maje, the water has receded, things are returning to normal, thankfully the only loss of lives that occurred there were of chickens and cows, though many people are inconvenienced by loss of other property, the last I heard was that everyone was safe, although the aftereffects of the flooding such as illnesses, loss of crops, and sanitation are yet to be determined.

In talking to family in the States, they were surprised that there was no news coverage on any of the flooding in Panama. The most widely accepted theory is that the news outlets were forced to drop the story to give adequate coverage to Prince Williams' proposal.

To make up for this lack of coverage here are some photos, including my house, before and after the flooding