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Roofless homes, upended lives in the wake of Soudelor
For Tanapag resident Patrick Dowai, the weeks after Typhoon Soudelor have been hard for his wife, who has diabetes, and his five children.
The family compound where he and his family live was devastated, with his house losing its roof to the typhoon. Other houses in the compound similarly lost their roofs. Right now, Dowai is making do with a blue tarp as a temporary roof over their heads.
Dowai said he has already received assistance from the Federal Emergency and Management Agency and their damage has already been assessed. However, he still hasn’t received assistance from the American Red Cross-NMI Chapter.
“We still need water, food, all basic needs. My wife has diabetes and we have transportation but it is really difficult. We are still waiting for FEMA’s response after they checked our homes,” he said.
One of the CNMI’s volunteer organizations, Community Outreach Recovery Efforts, discovered that majority of the homes in the compound were damaged, with some of the survivors living in other family’s homes that are still livable.
Like Dowai, Chalan Kiya resident Patricia Kaipata also lost her roof to the typhoon.
“Every time there is a typhoon, we always seek some shelter, so we went to our other family’s house in Garapan. …However, when the typhoon came, the place became very flooded and it wasn’t safe anymore there,” said Kaipat, who is also a CORE volunteer.
Kaipat said the garage roof blew on top of their car. Later, they sought cover at her work, the Commonwealth Cancer Association along Middle Road, where she stayed with her nephew, son, and daughter. Her other two sons were with her mom in Oleai.
Kaipat has already received assistance but she is also helping relatives who live in Oleai.
“There are about 16 of them and when the roof fell in on their home, they were all under one mattress. The next morning, we immediately went to my mother’s home to help. My nephew had to get down off the car and remove debris on the road as we made our way to Oleai,” she said.
CORE was able to access these typhoon victims and gave them care packages.
