by Rod Hughes

Tropical Storm Alma caused extensive flooding and damage to roads and bridges throughout the country and caught the country unprepared. Usually, tropical weather disturbances such as hurricanes develop in the Caribbean and their low pressure troughs draw in wet air from the Pacific that dumps torrential rains on the country.

But, for the first time in history, weathermen say, this storm developed some 50 kilometers off Costa Rica’s Pacific coast. La Nacion reporter Francisco Angulo called Alma “the first made-in-Costa-Rica tropical storm.” It hit the Guanacaste coastline as a clockwise rotating mass of clouds, rain and lightning.

About 9 a.m. yesterday, the National Hurricane Center in Miami raised the tropical depression to the level of the first tropical storm of the year. Nor did it move to the north as Pacific storms often do but to the northeast. Such tropical storms do develop in the Pacific during this time of year but usually strike land farther north at, for instance, the Pacific coast of Mexico.

National weather experts expect strong winds in the northern and central Pacific areas and more rains in the mountains, not discounting the possibility of tornados. But so far no deaths have been reported but material damages from the rains are heavy, reports the National Emergency Committee. Hardest hit was the village of Parrita in Puntarenas province where the streets were turned into swift rivers and 900 persons fled to shelters.

Alma closed the coastal highway in the area and knocked out cell phone and electrical service. Even then, Parrita area homeless were pursued by the storm which caused the collapse of four temporary shelters and the movement of flooding victims to a fifth, a large Evangelical church.

Roads throughout wide areas were closed by 11 landslides. Six bridges in the San Ramon area were damaged. Whole sections of Parrita and its environs were isolated.

by Rod Hughes

Ever wonder why it takes so long to build or rebuild roads and streets in Costa Rica? A report in the daily La Nacion reveals the reasons: inter-agency confusion.

Sometimes, the paper says, the Ministry of Public Works (MOPT) contractors have to wait up to 18 months for the water service (A y A) and the electrical services ICE and National Power and Light, to relocate utilities. The delays are expensive for the government, as well as snarling traffic, because MOPT must pay construction companies penalties for overrunning the length of their contracts. Among the changes that state agencies lag behind in completing before the asphalt or concrete can be poured are moving and re-installing light posts, sewers, electric cables and phone lines.

Example: The 2.5 kilometer stretch of street between the San Jose suburbs of Sand Francisco and La Colina began eight months ago but is still a gravel surface while constructors wait for A y A to install storm sewers. The current rainstorms can’t be doing the unfinished street any good and, indeed, it was originally to be completed this month, before the rains. A y A is also responsible for the non-completion of 1.2 kilometers between San Francisco and Zapote, even though 18 months have passed since construction began.

But not all errors happen because of utility company inefficiency. Take the reconstructed street built between Cartago and Paraiso. After waiting a long time for that street to be repaired, residents in houses on both sides of the street found that they must construct ramps to get their cars out of their garages. Reason: The new street level is much higher than that of the old, potholed thoroughfare. A spokesman for the MECO construction firm shrugs, “That’s the way the MOPT engineers designed it.”

If birds suffered from the same lack of coordination, none of them could fly…

by Rod Hughes

The mini-drought that brought such grief to the northern section of the country ended last week with long soaking rains. In just three days, Friday through Sunday, leaden skies dumped half the average precipitation for May and more rains continued in the first three days of this week.

But for great areas of the northern sector, the damage had already been done in the form of dry wells, failed crops and dried up pastures that resulted in the deaths of some 300 cattle. The rains started early in April, leading some farmers to plant early, betting on the heavy rains predicted for this year. But the few days of rain stopped abruptly and early May was unseasonably dry.

The pastures will return slowly but the Ministry of Agriculture promised aid to cattle ranchers in the form of dry fodder until the those grazing areas are long enough to provide sustenance. Sheep can eat short grass because of their razor sharp incisors but cows munch grass by wrapping their tongues around the blades and jerking their heads.

The rising water table will also fill the wells. The national water and sewer system, A y A in the Spanish acronym, was forced to send tankers full of potable water to some rural communities.

The rain in Spain may fall mainly on the plain, according to the old English pronunciation exercise, but in Costa Rica, it falls mainly in the mountains. Precipitation in San Jose during the month was 137 liters per square meter, far below the 225.9 average for the past nine years for May. During the first two weeks of the month hardly a drop fell in most areas of the Central Valley.

Weatherman Juan Diego Naranjo told the daily La Nacion yesterday that a tropical storm is passing over the country and will probably bring even more rains into tomorrow. Most areas of the Central Valley received rain off and on last night and this morning. Although steady, the rains have largely been gentler than the violent tropical cloudbursts that often assault the metropolitan area. Still, cautions Naranjo, the ground is now saturated and people living in low-lying areas should watch the level of nearby rivers.

<strong>by Rod Hughes</strong>

A series of sharp tremors shook up southern Costa Rica near the Panama border yesterday, causing no reported deaths and only minor injuries but damaging roads and 17 homes. The epicenter if the quakes was in the Pacific Ocean and registered from 6 to 4.6 on the Richter scale.

The strongest of the tremors hit shortly after 9 a.m. yesterday. In the town of Corredores, the roof of the school came down. Between that hour and 10:30, another three sharp aftershocks jarred residents. Golfito and Puerto Jimenez also felt the quake, the epicenter of which was 30 kilometers south of Corredores in an active undersea fault.

In Rio Incendio, Elisabeth Gomez luckily escaped with bruises when part of her home fell on her. In a nearby home, the roof fell on a gas cylinder in the kitchen, setting fire to the ruins. The hospital at Ciudad Neily chose not to receive regular patients and kept open only the emergency room.

by Rod Hughes

In a perfect example of the right hand not knowing the doings of the left one, the national power and light company (CNFL) invested $4 million to buy land for the construction of a dam ruled not feasible by its parent company, the Costa ican Electrical Institute (ICE), the daily paper La Nacion revealed today.

ICE pulled the plug on the dam project 18 kilometers north of San Ramon but not before CNFL’s investment. ICE is the power and light company’s principal stockholder. Since 2003, CNFL had been urging the construction of the dam, to be roughly the size of the currently existing 132 megawatt producing Cachi reservoir, which produces enough power for 100,000 homes.

The completed Balsa Superior project was to have cost about $300 million and to have had 25 kilometers of expensive tunnels. The dam at Pirris near Turrialba, by contrast, has only 10.5 kilometers of tunnels but produces the same megawattage as Balsa Superior was to have generated. Said Pedro Pablo Quiros, ICE’s CEO, where so many tunnels are needed, it means there is less water available.

Yet, the project would have collected water from six rivers and CNFL engineering estimates optimisticly put the reservoir size at equal to Cachi. Quiros summed up the possible lack of generating flow this way: “It was sensible to stop something that lacks reasonable viability from the risk analysis point of view. This was the conclusion without blame nor glory.”

Quiros said that CNFL would have to sell the property so that it would not be (pardon the expression) money down the drain. “These projects are so expensive,” he added, “that $4 million must not be an excuse to say, ‘better we go ahead (with it.)’”

<strong>by Rod Hughes</strong>

Motorists! Have a mechanic check out your engines often. Last year, 362 light vehicles, 84 trucks, 94 pickups, 32 heavy buses and 38 minibuses plus 25 pieces of equipment burned at roadside. And the average this year is 57 per month, according to studies by the National Insurance Institute.

Engine fires on buses are the most spectacular. The afternoon of March 1, 60 passengers of a Quepos-San Jose bus would up unhurt but stranded as they watched their transport burn at the edge of the highway. Four months earlier, reported the daily <em>La Nacion,</em> another 60 passengers had to scramble to safety as their bus headed north on the InterAmerican Highway was reduced to a burned out shell.

Hector Chaves of the National Fire Dept. (Bomberos in Spanish) cautioned, "People should understand that cars burn because of maintenance problems. They don’t explode like they do in movies." The two main causes, he told <em>La Nacion,</em> are electric shorts and fuel leaks but expressed his frustration at seeing increasing incidents of this type. "In 25 years of service," said the fireman, "I’ve never witnessed anything like this."

Usually the loss is confined to the material–but not always. Chaves remembers when Cecilia Khistina Rosenkvist, a Swedish lady, was trapped in her Isuzu Rodeo on the Prospero Fernandez Highway when the vehicle flipped and burned in March, 2006. Or the case of Jim Medrano who burned to death in his Jaguar after crashing into the divider and a post on the same highway in March of 2007.

<em><strong>What should you do in case of fire?</strong></em>

In case of electrical fires, disconnect the offending wiring. First and foremost is of course to turn off the ignition. If the insulation is burning your most effective weapon is an extinguisher that smothers the flames, most with CO2 vapor. If you want to consult experts about the best and most effective, drop by your nearest fire station. But check it for pressure every six months. In countless cases, motorists have stopped to aid the victim of a car fire only to find that their extinguishers were useless.

In case of a small fuel leak, an extinguisher can be effective. Do not use water; flaming gasoline can float on water, extending the fire. Of all things, pouring dust on a fuel fire can be effective. If you are in motion, choose a space away from parked cars, stop and get out immediately. But do not linger to save the car–remember that a gasoline fire advances five meters per second. (That’s one thing movies do not exaggerate.)

by Rod Hughes

BOGATA, Colombia– The high command of the Colombian guerrilla group FARC confirmed the death of its maximum leader, Manuela Marulanda, yesterday, raising hopes for a peace negotiation somewhere down the blood-soaked road. Marulanda, 78, founded FARC 44 years ago but it has evolved from being a guerrilla group into an organization identified by both the United States and the European Union as a dangerous narco-terrorist group.

Wire services reported today that the emotional confirmation statement was read over Venezuelan TV station Telesur by a member of FARC’s secretariat, Timoleon Jimenez, revealing that the leader had died of a cardiac infarct. This is the second such blow for FARC in two months. On April 1, a Colombian air attack on a FARC camp just over the border in Ecuador killed second in command Raul Reyes. (Names are in italics since they may be nom de guerre for one or both ommanders.)

Even before Marulanda died, reports had circulated that a split might have developed in FARC. This could be wishful thinking by war-weary Colombians but hopes were raised that FARC could follow the fate of the once numerious M-19 guerrillas that disbanded its military forces to follow a totally political agenda.

This possibility interests Costa Ricans for two reasons: Recently allegations that FARC had infiltrated this country’s political scene raised a firestorm of controversy and cost the job of then-Minister of Public Security Fernando Berrocal. A judicial police raid on the home of a Heredia couple revealed the moldering remains of nearly half a million dollars in a neglected safe, FARC funds from an era when the guerrillas hoped to establish an office in this country.

The controversy was fueled by an inflamatory report to an investigating committee in the Legislative Assembly delivered by DIS, the police intelligence agency. But Central America’s leading English-language newspaper, The Tico Times, editorially expressed skepticism of the DIS report and President Oscar Arias previously had gone on television to call Berrocal’s statements “demagoguery.”

The second reason for local interest: Part of the recent political confusion is generated by an attempt by Costa Rica’s Figueres Administration in the 1990s to broker a peace deal between FARC and the Colombian government. This involved meetings between FARC officials (including Reyes) and members of the government but nothing developed from the feelers since Costa Rica turned thumbs down on FARC placing an office here.

If peace is possible between FARC and the Colombian authorities, it is unlikely that the Costa Ricans will try to broker it, despite President Oscar Aria’s fame as a Nobel Peace Prize winner. The whole FARC episode has left a bad taste in officials’ mouths.

by Rod Hughes

The Central Bank dumped dollars on the money market for the second time in two weeks to try to halt the artificial rise of the U.S. dollar in the exchange of colones. The colon reached ¢527.85 per dollar yesterday, an all-time record. The colon rollercoaster is blamed on exchange speculators.

“When the dollar dropped, a lot of people changed their colones and now they’re converting to dollars again. But this isn’t good because if the dollar drops again, they can lose money,” cautioned Guillermo Quesada, manager of Bancrédito. The wild fluction began late last year when the Central Bank set the colon at the high 480s per dollar. But in the past two months that devaluation of the dollar exchange has been reversed.

Fortunately, the Central Bank has a healthy dollar reserve to use to stabilize things. And, with the prices of petroum rising to record highs of $120 plus per barrel, what has gone up recently is sure to fall. The exchange rate is related to inflation and rising food prices has already hit hard at the poor of Costa Rica, as it has in many other countries.

Central Bank president Francisco de Paula Gutiérrez also warned investors not to rush to exchange their savings based on temporary blips in the money market.

In other banking news, Banco de Costa Rica, one of the country’s oldest public banks, elected a new president, Luis Carlos Delgado, to replace Victor Emilio Hererra whose term expires June 1. Hererra admitted to the daily La Nación that he threw his support to Delgado. Others on the board are Percival Kelso, Roland Chacón, Alcides Calvo, Leonardo Ferris and Pablo Ureña.

<strong>by Rod Hughes</strong>

The Episcopal Conference of Costa Rica’s Catholic Church sent illegally obtained funds to Panama to escape the eyes of the government financial watchdogs, revealed the daily <em>La Nación</em> Thursday, in yet another article in a series that surely will win prizes for investigative reporting. Each new revellation of the use of Pastoral Services bank accounts to gather investor deposits has come as a blow to the Church’s prestige.

In July of 2005, Sugef, the national equivalent of the SEC in the United States, notified the Episcopal Conference that they could not act as a stock brokerage firm and ordered the body of bishops to cease and desist from doing so. To avoid these restrictions, the paper revealed, fund administrators continued to accept investor funds and to make loans through a Panamanian firm. According to one investor, a medic named Dr. Hugo Howell, he was notified of the move to avoid Sugef scrutiny. But the attorney for fund accountant, Minor Rojas, denies that his client remembers sending any such communications.

On May 14 of this year, Sugef formally accuse the conference of bishops for their offshore investment activities. But at least three bishops have denied they knew anything about the movement of funds. Yet an accountant, Jorge Sánchez, who has had an account with Pastoral Services since the 1990s says the move never was kept a secret. Sánchez says he worked directly with the fund’s administrator, the late Jorge Torres. Sánchez denied to the paper that Torres had ever instructed him to keep mum about the fund’s activities lest the bishops found out.

Dr. Howell also concurs that he was never sworn to secrecy and added, "It’s strange to me that they’re saying these things… I always thought Torres was an impeccable person."

Among the investors are family members of Church hierarchy. The list of investors was omitted from a report by Episcopal Conference lawyer Carlos Vargas gave <em>La Nación</em> on April 15. The Panamanian branch of Pastoral Services is closely associated with the investment firm Grupo Sama in that country.

by Rod Hughes

If you are one of the 400,000 pepole in Costa Rica who have a TDMA technology cell phone, enjioy it now because you won’t have it long. At the start of 2009, the phone company will begin to phase out the TDMA system.

ICE’s CEO Pedro Pablo Quirós explained yesterday that world phone industry is no longer offering the system. In 2009, ICE will offer a new generation 3G and install tranmission for 1.5 million new lines. He added that ICE is pushing the change to GSM for now, since 3G is more expensive. Also GSM offers a faster Internet and videophone service.

In fact, TDMA phones have disappeared from the market, even if one wanted one. According to Veronica Solózano, director of the Association of Cell Phone Manufacturers, new cell phones and repair parts using the TDMA system have not been exported for the past three years. But one industry insider warned that bootleggers are still selling rebuilt TDMA phones from Mexico and Miami.