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CHILE UPDATE: PART 3
Save The Waves' environmental director on earthquake's aftermath and the effort to provide relief
By:
Josh Berry
Photos: Lucas Wimer
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March 26, 2010
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Working in the field coordinating Save The Waves Coalition's Chile tsunami relief effort, environmental director Josh Berry was in the hardest-hit coastal disaster areas of Chile working from sunrise to sunset for 18 days straight.
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The devastation is overwhelming. In some areas the coast is completely erased - only small patches of asphalt or cement remain, scattered across miles of wasteland stripped down to sand and debris. Huge amounts of wreckage and trash lie in mountains on the beach in front of nearly every one of my favorite point breaks. Our work is clear, if not easy: help however and wherever possible. An 8.8 earthquake is no joke, and coupled with a direct hit from a tsunami this is nature's ultimate knockout punch. Hundreds of miles of coastline are reeling from the blow, including numerous surfing, forestry and tourism communities. The infamous pulp mills we've been fighting for years are all closed for months for structural repairs. The locals are completely shell-shocked. We chat about nothing everywhere we stop to offer help -- a water filter for clean drinking water, a tent, a plastic tarp to cover a shattered home. Sometimes the best aid is to coax a smile out of an ashen-faced friend. We are importing and distributing dozens of truckloads of relief aid on behalf of Save The Waves, but after a week in the field I'm learning that our real work here is much deeper than material aid: we're offering hope and encouragement, a spark of inspiration and a fresh push for a friend or a neighbor who lost literally everything. Some people not only lost their home, car, job and belongings; they lost a child or a grandmother or a friend to the tsunami and earthquake. Only my cheerful shoulder and encouragement can help that. Material aid cannot replace such a loss, and in many places our greatest aid is emotional. I'm watching a new type of Chilean phoenix arise out of coastal mud, twisted metal and salty dust. On our traveling team of medical specialists we have several psychologists and osteopathic cranio-sacral therapists. Their work is the most rewarding and clearly beneficial for this tsunami shell-shocked zone - they directly solve the emotional and mental trauma of the earthquake and tsunami aftermath, and heal it through touch and adjustment. Patients suffering from "post tsunami stress disorder" arrive in a state of shock, frowning and tense and looking for prescription drugs to ease the emotional pain. Our therapists spend 30 minutes adjusting their spines and chatting with them - and they walk out of the clinic smiling, laughing, and forgetting about the drugs! Over a late dinner one night, the power goes out during an aftershock - for the 10th time in 7 days - and as I'm lighting candles one of the therapists looks at me with tears in his eyes and tells me, "This is the most meaningful work I've ever done in my life." And then he starts weeping. The benefit is mutual - victims are healed, and aid workers gain wisdom and strength. Also with us is Hollywood heartthrob actor Paul Walker of REACT Worldwide. His disaster response team, led by a doctor from southern California, consists of 12 paramedics, firefighters, and first-response experts. I guide them to the hardest-hit city of Constitucion and its surrounding rural areas. People are living in tents or makeshift structures. As I teach local community groups how to build and distribute the simple water filters that we bought from Waves For Water, Paul's team dives into the grittiest medical needs with fearlessness. The patients they see in Constitucion include the nearly drowned survivor of a direct tsunami hit; the elderly; children needing vaccines; diabetics with serious infections; and epileptics in need of medication. Paul Walker commented on the tsunami impact, "The destruction is shocking - it's worse than what we saw in Haiti, because here the tsunami erased everything on the coast for hundreds of miles. In Haiti at least you can see the remains of the homes where they fell - in Chile the tsunami swept everything away." Our work continues and it will continue for months - distributing aid, sending medics where they are most needed, and helping the local people pick themselves up. But eventually this area and its tough-as-nails locals will be left alone. Perhaps our most important and meaningful work is inspiring hope and leadership in the locals. To give fellow humans the courage and strength to stand up and help themselves. Save The Waves Coalition will be implementing its "second wave" of coastal relief for Chile's hardest hit areas. Find out how you can help and donate to the cause at www.savethewaves.org MORE SURF NEWS SURFLINE HOME PAGE |