Hurricane Felix in Dákura

- By Rev. Hector Williams Padilla (Translated by Rev. Eric Pennings)

Hurricane Felix made landfall as a Category 5 hurricane on the morning of September 4, 2007 in Honduras and Nicaragua. Dakura is a community of about 400 families located on the Miskito Coast in Nicaragua, near Puerto Cabezas.

I was in the community of Dákura on the day that Hurricane Felix shattered the community. My family and I and about seventy people took refuge in my parents’ home because it was one of only eight concrete homes in the community. The other approximately 400 homes were built of wood, so the people protected themselves in the concrete homes which would be less likely to be damaged. There were so many people in the homes that we felt like matches in a match box.

At about 3:00 a.m. on Tuesday, September 4 we experienced the fury of the winds blasting through the community. We saw houses completely pulled off their foundations and tumbling through the air like broken parts of a toy. Trees were shaken and pulled up by the roots, and others were picked up and twisted like a rag and broken in half. Zinc sheets were flying all around. Pigs, chickens, dogs and even cows and horses were lifted by the force of the wind.

We saw men, women and children crying for fear of losing their lives. Some were holding tightly to tree trunks in order not to be carried away by the wind. Some parents with many children couldn’t hold them in their arms, so they took a rope and tied it around the children, and then around their waist so they wouldn’t be carried away by the winds. Most of the people who lost their homes took refuge in the trunks of the large trees that had fallen, because there was nowhere else to find protection. The only eight concrete houses were already packed with people. There was confusion, fear and desperation everywhere. Many confused mothers lost sight of their children and others in the community found them and returned them to their parents when the storm had passed.

Personally, it felt like not only a hurricane had passed through, but it seemed there was a tremor in the earth as well, because the concrete floor under us was dancing while the wind was beating against the walls and roof. In addition, the water level of the sea advanced inland about one and a half kilometers.

When it was over, we saw the confusion and the grief of people whose houses were destroyed, their animals dead, their belongings disappeared and even loved ones killed. In Dákura alone eleven people were killed, among them eight members of my family. One of them was my favorite uncle, Fruto Padilla, pastor of the Moravian church, who was killed when his house was destroyed. My parents’ house, where we took refuge, also had the roof torn off.

After it was all over, approximately 400 families were left, arms crossed, without food, without homes and with nowhere to go. The three churches in the community were completely destroyed, as well as the school. Today the community is filled with fallen trees. But at the same time, we are witnessing the will of the people to rebuild their houses and their village.

Rev. Hector Williams is the pastor of the “mother church” (in Puerto Cabezas) of twelve churches of the Assembly of Christian Churches. He is also the director of the MINTS Study Centre and the president of the newly formed relief agency made up of four MINTS students and it’s director (also a MINTS student). He was visiting his “home village” of Dákura where he was raised and most of his family still live.