Waiting for the hurricane

The title was inevitable, however cheesy. But that's just what we're doing you see.

It's not raining yet. It's uncannily dry, in fact, the sky unthreatening. A marked contrast to the cars throwing themselves about the place in a desperate panic to get somewhere else. The sound of honking horns was constant today - a different tone of constant than usual.

Every computer I pass is open on the US disaster warning website here, tracking Hurricane Felix as he crawls across the isthmus. Last night, the hurricane made landfall on the Moskito Coast in Nicaragua. I texted my friend Richard, who works in disaster response, "do you think I need to be stocking up on supplies?" He phoned back. "Hi, I'm just getting on a military plane to the moskitia. You'll need water purification tablets and dry no-cook food in case the electricity goes. And if it's bad Carol, don't go to the office. If people are looting, the Bulevard Morazan is the ideal place to loot; you don't want to get caught up in anything nasty".

Last night, it was unclear whether the hurricane would come near Tegus. But the trajectory was certainly disturbingly close. For the last two days, we've watched the trajectory obsessively; natural disasters bring an intimacy with physical geography that no amount of preparatory study can match. By this morning, it had scraped down further south, closer and closer to the centre of the country where Tegucigalpa lies. The trajectory is nothing more than a hypothetical path, but in the absence of certainty, the scientists in Miami become the ultimate authorities of everything.

So I swung by the supermarket to get milk and ice cream, which I figured would pretty much get me through the worst. It was like Christmas Eve in Blackrock. The queues of trolleys went right to the back of the store, and it was fascinating to see what people thought they'd need in case of apocalypse: one man had a trolley full of nothing but sliced pan; another was carrying about 20 pints of milk. Mostly though, it's clean water. The supers are out of bottled water now, and the petrol stations out of gas.

By this afternoon, still no rain. It's raining in Danlí, in the south, and in all the cities the airports are closed. Everything's been cancelled. Today the schools were closed, and the government told all businesses to shut at midday. I'm housing two refugees from the north coast (a Spaniard and a Finn, not at all shabby or downtrodden) who can't get home until the thing passes. Quiet anticipation. A lot of stories about Mitch.

My plan had been, and remained, to have a goodbye lunch for a Danish colleague from another agency, with whom I've worked quite closely. There were 4 of us at lunch, sitting on the terrace waiting for the rain. The waitress took away our wine glasses and carefully poured our wine into coffee cups: it's illegal to sell alcohol when the city's under red alert. So we sipped our wine and the others shared their memories of Mitch. Hurricane Mitch is Year Zero in Honduras: all events ocurred before or after that watershed in 1998. They told stories of pick up trucks floating in rivers, babies fished out of holes, panic and confusion and abject devastation: even well-off people were completely cut off and forced to sleep wherever they lay, one colleague on the floor of a bank for two days. But the solidarity, the way that people pulled together and forgot their differences - and in Honduras, it's often the differences that define people - that was what was amazing.

The wind's picking up outside. But I think the force is gone out of the thing. Felix has been downgraded to a tropical storm. Here in the city, we should be relatively safe. Still. We're still waiting for the rain. During Mitch, they say, you couldn't open the door for the rain, the force and volume of it.

Are we better prepared now? Jesus god, we'd want to be, don't you think? Apparently so: now there are national contingency commissions, emergency plans; already people have been evacuated from high risk areas throughout the country. During Mitch, they say, everybody ran about hopelessly uncoordinated and confused. Tocoa was cut off for 9 months, only receiving food by air, twice a week, sacks of rice. I think of Tocoa now. Who am I to say - but I think things have improved. And there's no point in denying it: I find the whole thing incredibly exciting - and I know I'm not the only one. But I'm rich, and European, and the chances this thing could kill me are low. Not everyone's so lucky.

The storm is coming. Me and my refugees will be fine: we have whiskey and tea to get us through it all. I hope to god though it comes softly.