YAP (22 Sep 2004) -- More than five months after Yap was slammed by its most destructive typhoon in memory, the island's leaders are still working hard to rebuild public infrastructure. Schools are only now beginning to reopen, and an estimated 75 percent of Yap's public schoolchildren have yet to step back into classrooms since Typhoon Sudal destroyed their schools on April 9. Five of Yap's 12 public elementary schools have opened within the last week and a half, but the remainder, as well as the state's middle schools and high school, are still being repaired, said John Waayan, information technology director on Yap who is working with the education department to rebuild the school facilities. Yap, an island in the Federated States of Micronesia, was hit with Sudal's more than 100 mph winds. Yap has traditionally been spared big storms and its infrastructure was ill prepared for such a storm, Pacific Daily News files state. People continued to live in schools-turned-shelters until last month, when the government set a date for them to move out so the schools could be repaired, Waayan said. Bruce Best, who runs the University of Guam's satellite radio station, and has been in touch with the Yap islands through their recovery, said the high school seniors of the class of 2004 were graduated shortly after the typhoon, when it became clear the high school wouldn't open for the rest of the year. But the rest of the students are all being evaluated as their schools open to determine whether they should advance to the next grade, or repeat last year's grade, he said. The outer islands' schools are also on the road to recovery, Waayan said. | | All in all, Waayan said, the government infrastructure is roughly 50 percent recovered -- lagging behind the private sector and utilities. He estimated power has been fully restored and phones are at about 90 percent restored. The waterlines from the reservoirs to the villages are fully restored, he said, but the infrastructure within the villages are in some cases still broken. The hospital, too, is still not fully repaired, Waayan said. The building, which was draped in tarps immediately after the storm, currently has a temporary roof. He said the government hopes to put a permanent roof on the building in the next couple of months. The delay in repairing government buildings is partly due to the slow bureaucratic process of negotiating with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, he said, and partly due to the difficulties of getting materials. FEMA agreed to covering 90 percent of the recovery efforts, with Yap's government providing the remaining 10 percent share. He said the government has already come up with the 10 percent, but has only received about 50 percent of the federal money. Another limiting factor is labor, he said. He said the government has hired most of the contractors on island and they are working as fast as they can to restore the buildings. The private sector has bounced back faster than the government, Best said. Just last week, he said, the 145-foot Indonesian boat S.V. Mnuw, which had held a restaurant and bar in Yap's harbor, was pulled off the road it's been laying on since April. Like a beached whale, the boat has been stranded there since the storm left it there. SOURCE - Pacific Daily News |
