1954, October 11: (Hurricane Hazel: Port-à-Piment Destroyed, 40 Percent of Coffee Bushes Denuded, Nan Mapou Becomes a Lagoon, and Les Hazels — the Mink Wraps…

1954, October 11: (Hurricane Hazel: Port-à-Piment Destroyed, 40 Percent of Coffee Bushes Denuded, Nan Mapou Becomes a Lagoon, and Les Hazels — the Mink Wraps): Two days after the Tricinquantenaire celebrations, the New York Times headlined: Haiti’s Poor Crops Cut Down Trade — coffee had not turned out well and the Banque had to buy nearly a million dollars’ worth of government bonds to provide operating cash for a budget now over $30 million. The president’s brothers Jacques and Arsène seemed to be profiting from the nonfiscal Régie du Tabac, that Estimé-era monopoly whose books were exempt from audit, and police chief Prosper had completed a palatial mansion costing $250,000 on monthly pay of $350. Then, on October 11, 1954, howling over slate-gray seas, eighty-knot winds lashed up from the south. Hurricane Hazel hit the coast at Port-à-Piment, ripped viciously past Cayes, all but destroyed Jérémie, leveled villages, killed at least a thousand victims, denuded forty percent of Haiti’s coffee bushes, flattened irretrievably the new Magloire-sponsored banana plantations, and uprooted half the country’s cacao trees. Nan Mapou, a prosperous village outside Port-à-Piment, was converted into a mile-long lagoon. The world reacted generously — U.S.S. Saipan was on the scene within twenty-four hours, and contributions came from the Red Cross, the United States with grants ultimately totaling nearly $5 million, Venezuela, Cuba, Jamaica, Ghana, and Guadeloupe. Years afterward, visitors to outposts in the back country would stumble on private hoards of relief supplies in army storerooms, prefectures, and shops — and the word Hazel entered Haiti’s vocabulary: henceforth, mink wraps worn by officials’ wives were styled les Hazels.