Maryland Community Newspapers Online
Aid groups, radio stations and nonprofits are rallying to help the tens of thousands of Salvadorans ravaged by Hurricane Ida.
Landslides and flooding in the Central American nation have killed 189 people as of Monday, left 80 missing and displaced nearly 15,000, according to the Embassy of El Salvador. News reports in the wake of the hurricane's Nov. 8 landfall described homes being swallowed up by torrents of mud and villages being evacuated.
The Washington, D.C., region's Salvadoran community has mobilized in the wake of the devastation. Spanish-language radio stations have been holding radiothons to raise funds, including Radio America and Radio El Zol. Fundraising drives continue this week through advocacy groups, including the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador and the Central American Resource Center in Washington, D.C.
As aid groups learned during responses to Hurricane Mitch in 1999 and a pair of earthquakes in 2001, cash donations are the most useful and efficient, said state Del. Ana Sol Gutierrez, a native of El Salvador.
Gutierrez (D-Dist. 18) of Chevy Chase has heard that the devastation is most acute in remote mountain regions that have been heavily deforested.
"It's not so much the flooding as the hillsides that get soaked — there are no trees to hold them, and they come devastating down," she said. "Those areas have been terribly, terribly hit. There's no way to get through, no way to get access. I think what we're seeing, the original estimates of people who have disappeared or are dead was just the tip of the iceberg."
More than half a million Salvadorans live in the Washington metro region, the largest number of which live in Montgomery County, Gutierrez said.
For more information on how to help aid efforts for El Salvador in the wake of the devastation caused by Hurricane Ida, call the Embassy of El Salvador at 202-595-7506.
Radio America (1540 AM) is holding a radiothon from 8 a.m. to noon Friday. To donate, call 301-942-5100 or 3500. Aid groups with online fundraising drives include the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador at www.cispes.org, the SHARE Foundation at www.share-elsalvador.org and the Central American Resource Center at www.carecendc.org.