By Winnie Romeril, Federation information delegate in Tabasco, Villahermosa, Mexico
The rescue phase has concluded. No more are stranded residents being plucked off rooftops in Tabasco, Mexico. Yet, the need remains for water and food sent by air, boat and increasingly by land. Hundreds of thousands of families in the capital of Villahermosa and across the state are still without electricity, running water or access to stores.
The continuing demand on relief workers is taking a toll and is not viable long term. The solution, according to the Mexican Red Cross, is to give the people more... more water, milk, food, diapers, toilet paper, soap, and, yes, even salsa. This is Mexico, after all.
Flood waters are slowly receding to expose roads, making larger shipments to some communities possible, especially near the capital, where 500,000 Tabasqueños live, a quarter of the state's total of two million. This frees up the helicopters, which can carry only limited quantities, to focus on bringing relief to "islands" of marooned people.
The sheer pace of emergency items coming into Tabasco-not to mention their speedy delivery into eager outstretched hands-is dizzying. Upstairs at the frenetic Villahermosa Mexican Red Cross (MRC) headquarters in a claustrophobic, smoky room, sits the MRC national director of response, Isaac Oxenhaut. When the flooding started, he flew back from San Diego, California to lead this massive effort. Most of his bilingual MRC team stayed in the U.S. to continue working side by side with American Red Cross volunteers fighting the California wildfires.
"As of close of 10 November, the Mexican Red Cross brought 2,675 tonnes of supplies into Tabasco," announces the grizzly 57-year-old paramedic and veteran of decades of disasters large and small on both sides of the Rio Grande. He punches his calculator keys a few more times. "Of that, 2,400 tonnes have already been distributed."
The mind-boggling numbers only begin to tell the story. MRC has mounted an impressive and coordinated national effort. At nearly 500 MRC offices nationwide, volunteers are sorting, recording, weighing, re-packing and loading all of this generosity by hand.
Today, the Aztlan communities will be flooded with enough relief supplies to meet basic needs for the coming two weeks. The large deposits will give people greater security as they watch and wait for the waters to recede. Red Cross volunteers were dropped into eight Aztlan communities at 8:30 the morning of 11 November to conduct a detailed census of the needs.
Back at the makeshift heliport in Ciudad Deportiva sports complex in Villahermosa, the air bridge operation, which started nearly two weeks ago, runs like a well-greased machine. Helicopters touch down for five to seven minutes, rotors spinning, and human chains of Red Cross, Federal Police, Civil Protection and other volunteers rush to fill the aircraft. Simultaneous loading of two or three choppers is common.
I travelled on one helicopter on loan from the state of Nueva Leon. It was loaded with the typical cargo of water and Red Cross subsistence relief packages. Ten minutes after take-off, we circled a crowd of waving "islanders" and landed 150 meters from a roughly-constructed shelter on a strip of land. Although the water level statewide has gone down considerably in the past two days, the 70 families are still stranded. Welcome to "Rancheria el Jahuacte, 3rd Sector" in Aztlan, Tabasco.
Community men off-load supplies as efficiently as any Red Cross volunteers anywhere. The women of the community rush to me as the person wearing a Red Cross vest to beg for milk and mattresses. They ran out of milk yesterday for their 35 children.
The very next helicopter, which should return about 30 minutes after leaving the community, will bring enough milk for the next two weeks, I assure them. I also tell them we cannot use precious space on the helicopters for mattresses until all the water and food needs are met of the hundreds of stranded communities like them. They quickly nod in agreement.
When I turn to leave, Georgina Ocuña plants a soft kiss on my cheek and says in a voice barely audible above the churning helicopter blades, "Thank you to the Red Cross for saving us. God bless you all." She and other women embrace me and I have to pull away as I hear the rotors speeding up in preparation for lift off. Another chorus of "Gracias" and we climb aboard the helicopter to return soon with more supplies.
This plan to give the communities larger quantities of supplies was initiated by the Red Cross and is now being followed by the Mexican Army at their three main heliports.
With one phone call from Colonel Abeldaro Garfias Cazadero to Isaac Oxenhaut, 145 tonnes of water, milk, food and other basic supplies were delivered within hours to military installations at the university, Cardenas and the airport. These will be delivered by the army following the same procedure for stocking communities with two to three weeks of supplies.
"This new plan really helps out," says Captain Sergio Manuel Serrano Busio of the First Infantry. "We have already finished a census of necessities. Soon we will begin delivering brooms and sheeting, but until the water goes down, they cannot return to their houses. So for now, it's strictly food and other necessities."