Playa Brasilito only 6 hours after it started raining… you can just imagine how much worst it looked after 3 days of Nate…

We recently had a 3-day long tropical storm in Costa Rica; tropical storm Nate. Some have referred to it as a hurricane but I guess I have always pictured hurricanes having 75mph+ winds in addition to a lot of rain. Tropical storm Nate was mostly rain… a lot of it. Apparently it was the “most rain Costa Rica has ever seen”, according to many. It was enough rain and wind to cause significant mudslides, fallen trees, overflowing rivers, and flooding. Schools ended up being cancelled for four days, as there was a government shutdown, and some school districts were closed for even longer. People lost a lot during the tropical storm, and three weeks later many are still recovering.

We were fortunate enough to have just moved the Friday before the storm, into a building on a hill in an area that was not affected by flooding.  Nate’s rains hit Costa Rica the Tuesday after we moved. We lost power, internet, and phone service for a few days due to the storm and definitely had rain water come in our house but nothing crazy. Had the storm hit the week prior, however, our fate may have been different.

Prior to moving into our current home, we lived in a town called Potrero, which is situated between two rivers and forms an alluvial plane that feeds into the Pacific Ocean in the Potrero Bay. The two small bridges that cross those two rivers were apparently completely flooded during the storm, making it impossible for residents to leave the area. We would have been cut off from grocery stores and probably would not have had any food, as we often only bought what we needed to cook that day. Going grocery shopping with Abe in the stroller, especially in the heat, meant getting a very limited amount of stuff. Sam would walk to the store in the evenings when needed as well but it was often while carrying Abe (because I was usually in my Spanish class), and he too was therefore limited on how much he could carry.

Flamingo beach on day 1 of the storm

We had no idea that the storm was coming and were absolutely not prepared for it. Thankfully, the area we moved into is right next to a decent grocery store that remained open during the storm, allowing us buy water (tap water was very limited during the storm) and other necessities (ice cream included of course, which had to be eaten fast so that it doesn’t melt). It’s ironic because the day before the storm I had watched an episode of Being Mary Jane (yes I watch that show and secretly love it) where she found an “emergency kit” while she was being nosey and going through her boyfriend’s stuff. I then thought, “hmm… that’s actually a great idea! We too, need to have one just in case we are caught in a natural disaster.” Little did I know, the natural disaster would hit much sooner than I could have imagined.

The Sunday before the storm we had gotten in a car accident. We were subsequently required to drive to Liberia, a city an hour away, to present Sam’s passport, as he did not have it on him during the accident. We did not take this journey on Monday, the day after the accident, because Sam wanted to give his school a heads-up prior to taking a day off. He took Tuesday off instead, not knowing what was to come.

As the rain started that morning, we did not think much of it. It has been raining on and off for as long as we’ve been here, since it is the rainy season, and we therefore thought it was just another rainy day. We saw that there was a lot more rain than usual that morning, but being from Zanzibar, where we have heavy rains throughout the rainy season, and knowing that the rainy season is usually at its worst in October, we thought it was normal.

We got ready to head to Liberia, called the car rental company and initially did not have any luck. As we continued to try to reach the rental company, Sam received an email from his school stating that school was getting dismissed at 10AM that day. I was surprised by this and thought, “ah! This is like D.C. a few years ago when life would stop because of an inch of snow” and continued to call the car rental company. Nothing was going to stop us from getting to Liberia. After all, it was just rain, we thought. We then tried to reach a taxi that we usually use. The taxi guy lives in Potrero, where we used to live, and he informed us that he was not able to leave that area due to flooding.

Flooded house ~ 6 hours after Nate arrived.

Lucky for us, we saw our building manager leaving our compound at around 11AM. He was nice enough to offer us a ride to the car rental company, which was open but their phone lines had been down. At that point, I was thinking, “wow, Costa Rica is so dramatic… its just rain.” We went ahead and rented a car and stopped for lunch on the way. The owner of the restaurant, a Tica, informed us that this was the most rain she had ever seen in Costa Rica and they were therefore planning on closing early that day. What was happening STILL had not clicked in our heads.

We finished our lunch, buckled Abe in his car seat, and headed for Liberia. We probably should have turned around after seeing a few fallen trees and barely being able to see out of the windshield, but if you know Sam and I then you know how stubborn we can be. Plus I survived Massachusetts’ winters with a 2-wheel-drive so I definitely was not going to let rain stop us.  Additionally, we were quite sure that the rain would slow down… as rain often does.

On the way to the grocery store when the rain slowed down enough to make us think it was over… we were wrong

As we continued to drive, very slowly and carefully, we saw the first mudslide… then the second… then there was an overflowing river, which looked like it may push us off the road… but we got through it all. Then there was standstill traffic. That’s when we decided to turn around and go grocery shopping instead at a store 40-minutes away from our house. We like this specific store because the produce is often better, although more expensive, and they have a bigger selection than the store in our neighborhood. We figured we might as well take advantage of having a car.

It wasn’t until we were on our way to the store that we realized it was not regular rain. The damage the rain had caused, only six hours after it started, was quite evident. It was shocking to see the amount of homes that were flooded and how treacherous the road conditions were. We passed through multiple rivers overflowing across the roads on our way there. The drive was quite scary because we thought the overflowing rivers of water would be strong enough to push us off the road. After seeing some cars ahead of us go through, however, it gave us more confidence. Plus it was too late to turn around… we were almost at our destination and there was barely any room to do a three-point-turn.

Abe helping his baba “make mayai” when the electricity came back on for a few hours

We managed to grocery shop and get home to no electricity. Thankfully we had some candles and had gone grocery shopping because it would continue to rain for the next 3 days and we wouldn’t have electricity for most of that time. Our flashlight was not charged, initially, but at some point the electricity came on for a few hours. During that time we managed to charge our flashlight, phones, and cook a lot of food (electric stoves make cooking during an electrical outage impossible). The electricity stayed mostly off for the remainder of the storm.

Not having electricity, phones, or internet had its pros and cons. It did allow us to bond. Abe got to read a lot of books and we got to talk a lot. It was also nice to see the neighborhood kids freely playing “man-hunt” outside rather than being indoors, probably on technology. Rain sure was not going to stop them. It reminded me of my childhood in Zanzibar when rainy days were so much fun. I remember basically swimming in the rainwater in the streets of Stone town… if you’ve been to Zanzibar then you know how dirty that water can get, but that never stopped my cousins and I. Abe also got to sing a lot of the songs that I sang during blackouts in Zanzibar… which happened quite frequently. It was fine for a little, but not having electricity got old pretty fast. By day two I was done with having fun in the dark.

The sunrise from our house 4 days post-Nate’s arrival

Once the storm passed, however, and life slowly started to get back to normal for us, we realized that for many, that was not an option. While we fretted about not having electricity, others literally feared for their lives. The storm had caused so much damage that many people were forced to leave their homes. We found out, from my super worried parents who had been following Nate on Al Jazeera in Zanzibar, that the storm had caused 22-deaths throughout Central America. We also heard stories about people sleeping in trees to avoid crocodiles and poisonous snakes that had been swimming around in their flooded homes.

The crocodiles our neighbors saw post-Nate…apparently an alert was issued for people to be wary of crocodiles that had been roaming around after rivers and estuaries overflowed.

While driving to Liberia the week after, we continued to witness the effects of tropical storm Nate. There were couches, fridges, mattresses, and other large furniture and appliances getting thrown out everywhere probably because the floods had also caused septic tanks to overflow into people’s homes as well. The damage the storm caused for many would be challenging to overcome. My family and I were some of the lucky ones.

Driftwood (and LOTS of plastic) on Playa Flamingo post-Nate

As the sun continues to shine post-tropical storm Nate, we will continue to pray and think of not only those effected by the storm in Costa Rica, but also Nicaragua, where the effects of Nate were quite evident during our recent visit, the Caribbean, and the rest of the world. We have especially been thinking about the hundreds of people who were killed in India, Bangladesh, and Sierre Leone during the recent floods and praying that one day, we will take climate change seriously enough to intervene.

 

“Nature is alive and talking to us.” The question is, when will we listen?