Colombian natural disaster sparks impromptu rescue mission by Louisville WaterStep group

It had been just two hours on the second deadliest road in South America, casually known as the "Trampolin de la Muerte" or Trampoline of Death, when the rain began.

People from Louisville's WaterStep nonprofit bounced through the hairpin turns on the single-lane, gravel road with nothing but a thin ribbon of yellow caution tape between them and a drop into a mountainous ravine. The term "oncoming traffic" had begun to take on a whole new meaning.

"I thought the roads in northeast India were the worst I would ever travel," said Kurtis T. Daniels, the water purification company's director of field training and equipment. "India was a cake walk compared to the Trampolin."

Their 300-mile drive from Quito, Ecuador to Mocoa, Colombia, a trip that might take five or six hours in the United States, was approaching the 15-hour mark. They hadn't planned this trip but had heard of a deadly flood and landslide in neighboring Colombia and knew people there could use their help.

WaterStep staffers had been visiting remote communities as they crisscrossed the Esmeraldas province of Ecuador for eight days, from dawn to dusk meeting residents, delivering equipment and retraining community leaders in how to use WaterStep's water purification systems.

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It had been a blur of coastal villages in mangrove forests, suspended on wooden platforms over the salty waters of the Pacific. Refugee camps were marked by tents and large blue water tanks. Numerous small farming communities were tucked in nooks on rolling hills of hand-planted corn. The people had been as diverse as their living conditions but were united by a common struggle: access to safe water.

The Ecuador trip was supposed to be a follow-up to the group's relief efforts following the April 17, 2016, 7.8 magnitude quake. An event that had created refugees and made it harder to get clean water in vulnerable communities.

Nearby, in Mocoa, Colombia, disaster washed over the sleeping community.

In the early morning hours of April 1, rain-swollen rivers burst from their banks, sending a torrent of water, boulders, mud and debris across Mocoa. More than 45,000 were affected. Over 300 were dead. At least 100 were missing. The numbers were shocking, and for WaterStep CEO Mark Hogg, being in the country next door, it couldn't have felt more serendipitous.

"It just felt like a sign," Hogg said. "We were already so close. We had equipment available. We had to try."

Over the span of days, crew members Rosa Linda Tapia and Manuel Valencia had established contacts in Colombia. The team was ready to roll into action.

"When we hear about a natural disaster at WaterStep, it's not that we don't want to respond. The desire is there," Hogg said. "It's measuring the potential connections we've got and how those work in a way that we can make an effective response."

Arriving in Mocoa, the power of Mother Nature was evident. Fields of car-sized boulders stood where homes and neighborhoods had once been. Residents stood in lines that wrapped around the town square, registering with government agencies for aid. Former sports complexes were now filled with green tents for shelter.

In the midst of disaster, this is the reality. There is no escaping. There is only adjusting.

"Life for people here has been difficult in recent days. Many people have lost their families, their houses, their jobs. Everything they have," Mocoa school teacher John Mantilla said. "People had no chance to escape."

"When we went into Mocoa, we weren't sure what to expect, so I think we expected the worst," Hogg said. "Coming across the first bridge we immediately began to see the power that happened in Mocoa - boulders had been thrown around like gravel."

The team met residents Julian Duque and his wife, Doris Arboleda, on the steps of a medical facility in downtown Mocoa. Their legs were badly cut and bruised. Julian's foot was bandaged as he walked with a limp. Doris' face was bandaged and her knee so swollen she could barely stand. The couple, along with their daughters, had been caught in the flood and separated as the wave of water and debris swept them away.
 
"I tried to find somewhere safe for us to go, but then I saw it coming and it was too late," Julian said. He wrapped his arms around his young daughters, Paula and Daniela, and tried to hold on as they were drifted downstream. "I felt myself losing grip, and as I lost them I just gave up." When Julian was able to get to his feet, a neighbor had found Daniela with just her foot exposed in the mud. After digging her out, they soon found 5-year-old Paula's hand sticking up from debris. He and others freed her from the mud and vegetation.

"It's one thing to say that you've been a part of a disaster response," Hogg said. "But what gets in your heart, what gets in your very soul, is not the fact that you're at this disaster and you see all of this chaos. It's the people stories that become a part of you and that stay with you."

Within an hour of arrival, Hogg and his people immediately began meeting with local aid groups like the Colombia Red Cross and demonstrated their water purification equipment at the Instituto Tecnológico Putumayo. Over 50 local emergency responders, medics and volunteers attended. A short distance outside, in a small, covered stadium, residents foraged through donated clothing inside the refugee camp that housed hundreds of families in tents.

"Going into Mocoa it was like a shotgun effect. We were looking for any partners we could find," Hogg said. "When we respond, we want to maximize our equipment, maximize our relationships and find people to forward that once we're gone."

The following morning the crew arrived to lead a presentation at the Comunidad Villa Rosa, a refugee camp housing 250 families inside a small community center. A week since the disaster, routines in this new life were apparent. Reinel Claros Para led a small group of men into the surrounding jungle to cut down trees and bamboo to build new structures for shelter. Refugee Yudi Andrea Quinonez used a small plastic bowl to bathe with water from a large blue tank.

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The Colombian government has been delivering residents safe water with tanker trucks and has established a cache of water bottles and bags. But local residents and WaterStep are concerned about what happens when the government aid ceases.

"The most difficult thing I think that will come is in one month, maybe two, when these kinds of help leave and don't come again," resident John Mantilla said.

"The population of Mocoa is 36,000 people. Imagine you have one million, one-liter bottles. That is only 7.3 gallons of water per person," WaterStep's Daniels said, adding that much water per person "would last about two days. This isn't sustainable, or practical, no matter how you look at it."

This is where water purification systems can make a huge difference.

"The WaterStep equipment just keeps putting out safe water. In the right hands and with the training it takes to use it," Daniels said. "If you do the math, there is just never enough bottles of water to supply the need."

Leaders of the Comunidad Villa Rosa, like Richard Carrillo with GOES APH organization, seemed to immediately embrace the technology and within days were texting photographs to Hogg of themselves using the equipment inside the camp.

"As soon as we arrived there, something really special just happened and we had this connection," Hogg said. "We were able to leave them equipment for them to take care of not only the 250 families that were living in that area but also the 800 that were coming in for food."

Over the span of three days, Hogg and staff were able to hold multiple training sessions and ultimately ended up entrusting their equipment with a spectrum of volunteers and organizations in Mocoa. Many of which have already begun utilizing the equipment in need areas since WaterStep's departure.

"For us to be able to come in and empower them with self-sufficiency, in reference to water and sanitation, it is a game changer," Hogg said.

As Carrillo took Hogg on a tour around the Comunidad Villa Rosa he called out to a woman that was nine months pregnant. "When she has that baby, I will deliver that baby and my wife will be the doctor," Carrillo said. "That baby will now have safe water and we will have disinfectant to deliver the baby with."

"To imagine that will be the first child in a refugee camp of 250 families that will have safe water, that is extremely humbling," Hogg said.

Alton Strupp can be reached at 502-582-4169.

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