When Stan Passed - By Pete Rogers

[Please scroll to end of article to see before and after photos of the damage from Hurricane Stan and to see how you can help. If all photos do not appear at first, please click the refresh button on your browser.]

Most of you didn’t know Stan when he passed October 4th of last year. In fact, he started to pass on the 4th but didn’t really leave us until October 9th. Most of you have also never heard of the river Depoplado in Mexico because it’s a small, somewhat insignificant river. With about 6 feet of width and 2 feet of depth it’s always been a friendly river where children can play in the river while parents wash the days needs.

Finca Santa Fe sits on the river Depoplado as it has since 1885. It’s a beautiful coffee farm that laps its edges in the river side and climbs 3,000 feet straight up a mountain. It was an ideal location to choose for a coffee farm: rich volcanic soil, steep slopes, and a river nearby so water would never be an issue. For various reasons, our company doesn't buy coffee from Santa Fe, but we are friends with the people there and have been guests in their homes on many occasions.

Santa Fe received heavy rains in September of this past year as did all of the farms in the Tapachula region in Southern Mexico. As good farmers do, they all measured and noted the rain in their books and hoped no more would come as the crop was about to start. Nothing is more terrible for a coffee farmer than heavy rains during a crop because cherries absorb the water, grow in weight, and split open. When the cherries get too heavy, they fall to the ground and are lost. To make matters worse, workers will often refuse to pick in the pouring rain. Simply said, rain is always on the mind of a farmer.

Most farms in the Tapachula region are blessed with good soil. On top is the rich volcanic soil that allows anything to grow in this area. Below that is a sandy base that sits on top of rocks, which grow considerably in size the deeper one digs. Small, hand-sized rocks are a few feet down from there, and massive boulders the size of Chevy Suburbans are deeper. Huge trees act like anchors to hold this rocky, sandy mix together.

The problem with Stan wasn’t one of strength or damage; it was one of fame. Katrina hit in August and quickly became the largest natural disaster in most of our lives. Before we could recover, Rita hit again, and we were all emptying our pockets to help those in need. Stan moved across the Gulf of Mexico in early October with two tropical storms heading its direction from the Pacific Ocean. Hitting Mexico squarely, Stan slowed to a crawl due to the opposing tropical storms, and the net effect was a hurricane that decided to vacation in Mexico for a while.

As Stan vacationed in Mexico, it dumped huge amounts of rain. In the Tapachula region, most farms received between 2.2 to 3.5 meters of rain in five days. That’s almost 7 to 11 feet or over 70% of their yearly normal rainfall. Spread over four months this is an acceptable level. In five days, it’s a disaster. Then just as Mexico began to understand the full extent of the damage in the south, Wilma hit Cancun and shut down Mexico’s main tourist location. With few funds to rebuild, the Mexican government decided to rebuild the hotels and tourist areas. Stan and the coffee farms of Southern Mexico were forgotten.

As the rain began to build, the steep slopes that could normally absorb the water began to buckle under the pressure. The sandy soil let the rain pass to the roots, but when the roots could absorb no more, the water began to move downhill. Slowly the rainfall picked at places, pulling small rocks sticks and sending them down hill. Small streams joined with other small streams and grew into bigger streams. Rocks tumbled down the hillside ripping the soil and opening more wounds. 200 year-old trees, three stories high, toppled down the hill. With the anchors gone, the ground liquefied and created mudslides. Huge rocks, the size of small school buses, rocketed downhill, crashing and tearing everything in their paths.

Victor, the farm manager of Santa Fe, noticed two things quickly from his home on the riverbanks; the water was rising quickly and the water was turning mustard yellow. Soon, the river was growing to a quarter mile across, and water was rushing into his house. The gigantic rocks, being pushed by the force of the water, bounced down stream. Victor’s son told me he thought God was pretty mad that day because he was “making a lot of noise.” I’m sure his son will never forget the sound of huge boulders crashing down the river.

As the river began to grow, the gigantic trees and boulder that had been anchors soon became torpedoes. Two rocks took out the farm’s bridge that was built in 1890. The first hit the center of the bridge and the second finished it off. Now completely cut off, Santa Fe was pinned against the mountainside.

With the bridge gone and no way to escape, the 450 farm workers began to worry. Victor assembled them in the second story of the mill. From their windows they watched as the river consumed the village’s school and soccer field. Next, it took the main kitchen, and finally, it tore apart their entire housing complex. They’d lost everything.

On the 3rd day of heavy rain, Victor began to think the rain would never stop. Water now breached the walls of his house and milling facility. The plan was made to move everyone into the mountains and hope they wouldn’t be hit by one of the hundreds of mudslides. Waist deep in water, he walked 100 feet across the driveway to see if he could save anything from the house, but he couldn’t make it across. Back on the second story they all watched as water rushed in towards the house and mill. The power generator was up-rooted and washed down stream. Refrigerators and sofas from upstream farms soon followed. A huge tree pierced the side of an old farmhouse; it passed through all five rooms and exited cleanly out the other side. In minutes the house and everything Victor and his three kids owned except the clothes on their backs was gone.

The river now picked apart the “patio” area where they dry the village's coffee. Cars and trucks that were parked on this “high ground” slipped into the river as it consumed the 10-foot wall protecting the patio. The mill was next in line. Victor evacuated everyone to the hills to escape the river thinking the odds of a mudslide were lower than those of being swallowed by the water. Before he left, Victor opened all the doors to the milling facilities and waited out the storm from the hillside.

In over 100 years, no memory of such a disaster was ever recorded. Around 700 people in Mexico died, which is fairly low considering the extent of the damage. Over 769 bridges were washed out not including small local bridges, of which no real guess could be made. A true estimate of the number of the houses lost is impossible. Landslides consumed over 140,000 hectares of coffee land. Due to the rain, lack of workers, and issues with quality, they estimate approximately 400,000 bags of coffee will be lost.

In the next few months, there will be many bankruptcies. La Victoria, the neighboring farm and Community Aid participant, has spent $110,000 just to fix the roads on the farm. They faired well during the storm, but will produce only 5,000 bags of their 7,000 bags of coffee that they originally forecast. With this lower yield and additional spending to fix roads their costs have increased by .23 cents per pound. (As a side note, the people of La Victoria found a tree across the river during the storms and walked food to the 450 workers of Santa Fe.)

Other farms in the area similarly affected with huge repair bills and an 18 to 25% reduction in crop. Finca La Paz couldn’t make their loan payment and would have lost the farm if we didn’t help them out. They were lucky. In Santa Fe, who knows if the farm will recover or can afford to… and there are many farms like Santa Fe.

There are many memories that still stand in honor of Stan: a solitary wall with a sink and toilet in the middle of the river, an SOS painted on what remained from the patio area, and scratch marks like a cat’s across the mountains. Each of these visions I’ll remember, but what I’ll always remember are the people. These are some of the poorest people in the world, and they have lost everything. This is a world not covered in insurance or by the media. This hurricane beat the stuffing out of them, and here they stand today. Water systems are being fixed, rocks moved, roads rebuilt. Their sprits are high. They joke it wasn’t so bad and thank God for their lives. Stone by stone, rather then sitting and waiting for government help, they rebuild.

Victor's Home, before and after:

Santa Fe's Bridge, before and after:

The community's coffee drying "patio", before and after:

How You Can Help

Finca Santa Fe is not part of our Community Aid program because we don't buy coffee from them. But they are suffering and are our friends, so we decided to help them out with personal contributions and by spreading the word to others we know. If you would like to help Finca Santa Fe, you can make a donation through our Rogers Charitable Fund. This is a legitimate non-profit through which we donate all our Community Aid funds, and your donation will be tax deductible. To donate please contact the fund administrator, Barbara Rogers at (800) 829-1300. We will personally update everyone via email on how his or her funds are being used to help in the recovery in Santa Fe. Thank you.