Hurricane Matthew swept through Haiti on Oct. 4 and immediately became the biggest natural disaster and humanitarian crisis since the earthquake that devastated Haiti in 2010.

The hurricane as of Oct. 28 has affected 2.1 million people in Haiti, along with 1.4 million people who need assistance and 141,493 people who were displaced, according to a report from the United Nations Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Some of those people, are family members of doctoral student Jean Rene Thelusmond and his wife, Lita Thelusmond.

“The situation is pretty dire,” Jean Rene said.

A disaster close to home

Jean Rene’s family is from the northern part of Haiti, while Lita’s family is from the more southern parts of the country.

Both of their families are currently homeless and have lost almost everything, while Lita’s family is currently living in the open air, which means they have no plausible shelter or roof over their heads, the Thelusmonds said.

This can be attributed to the tropical climate Haiti lives in, along with poor conditions the people of Haiti live in.

“First we need to have some stronger houses that can resist the hurricanes, and at the same time work to protect Haiti’s environment because Haiti’s environment is very, very fragile,” Jean Rene said.

Haiti’s environment is fragile because of the amount of deforestation that takes place in Haiti, along with Haiti being a mountainous country, Jean Rene said.

“Mostly, when we don’t have any trees in the mountains, when it rains ... we have a lot of mudslides,” Jean Rene said. “Most of the time the (mudslide) isn’t the problem, it’s the flooding that’s the major problem.”

Jean Rene said with the deforestation in Haiti comes a loss of trees, which are key protectors of the people of Haiti from the effects of hurricanes.

“The trees can also serve as a barrier to block the wind,” Jean Rene said. “If there’s no trees around ... it’s going to blow into the houses directly.”

This isn’t the first time Haiti has been affected by a natural disaster, and it more than likely won’t be the last.

The deadly landscape

During natural disasters like Hurricane Matthew, visiting assistant professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences Guillaume Girard said the “steep mountainous regions” in Haiti can make the situation worse by causing landslides after a hurricane or earthquake occurs.

“They’re exposed to a lot of natural hazards by geography, that puts them in a bad spot,” Girard said.

Since Haiti is located near the boundary of the Caribbean tectonic plate and North American tectonic plate, it causes Haiti to experience a lot of earthquakes because it is a transform fault, just like the San Andreas Fault in San Francisco, Calif., Girard said.

The reason Haiti is always in a crisis after a natural disaster is because Haiti is one of the poorest countries not only in the Americas, but in the “bottom 20” in the world, Girard said.

This can be attributed to the poor infrastructure in Haiti, poor education, a bad health system and the government response to rescuing those in need after a natural disaster is horrible, to go along with corruption within the Haitian government, which is “more than terrible,” Girard said.

Another reason it’s difficult for Haiti to recover from a natural disaster is the increased exposure to disease, especially with water contamination in a tropical climate compared to a place like San Francisco, Girard said.

“The water may get some dirt in it ... (and) you will get notice if you’re in San Francisco (when) there’s an earthquake ... that you can’t drink the water, and people aren’t going to do it because they have other ways to get (water), like bottled water,” Girard said.

This leads to little possibility of water being infiltrated by viruses such as cholera, which is a bacterial disease that is spread through water that can cause severe diarrhea and dehydration and if left untreated and can be fatal within hours of contracting, according to the Mayo Clinic.

This can be an issue in poorer developing nations, such as Haiti, and countries in tropical climates, Girard said.

“Cholera (was) introduced by accident after the earthquake in 2010,” Girard said. “It was a failure of international aid.”

Does school come first?

On top of this, Jean Rene said he’s finding it hard to focus on his academics, knowing the situation his family is currently in.

“Now I should be on the ground providing help and relief for my family members,” Jean Rene said.

Jean Rene said they’re providing as much financial help as possible, but are limited on what they can send.

“There’s not much that I can do since I’m a (graduate) student,” Jean Rene said. “Because I’m not making much, I can’t just say, ‘OK, here, let me send you some money.’”

Sending supplies to their families is also difficult because of the distance between Michigan and Haiti.

“We try to send them whatever we have,” Lita said. “We cannot send them clothes, we cannot send them any food. Just money.”

Girard said this is because Haiti only has one main airport in the capital city of Port-au-Prince that can host large cargo planes for supplies, which are then transported by land.

“Landslides disrupt the roads ... when there’s floods it’s a problem and when the roads aren’t safe — there’s a chance that they can get robbed — that means that there’s less help getting to the populations,” Girard said.

However, through the Red Cross they can send hygiene products to their families, Jean Rene said.

“That’s the only thing they can do, because there’s no office here (at MSU),” Lita said.

Jean Rene said the things people in Haiti need most right now are food and shelter.

Jean Rene also said he’s planning on visiting them in December to provide assistance and get them back in homes.

With this, Lita and Jean Rene are trying to reach out not only to the MSU community, but also the communities of East Lansing and Michigan to seek help for their families.

Lita and Jean Rene said this is possible because of a GoFundMe started up by Jean Rene to help build homes for the community their family lives in.

"(I want) to see if I can make a difference in the lives of the people of my community in Haiti,” Jean Rene said. “As a Spartan, if I could do that, it would be a good thing because I’m called to be a leader and if I see anyone suffering — especially in my community — I can help.”

This led Jean Rene and Lita to try and replicate the type of community that takes place in the rural areas and small towns of Haiti, which is where Lita’s family is from.

“In Haiti, when people are living in the rural area, everybody is family,” Jean Rene said. “They have very strong ties, so if one is suffering, the entire community is suffering.”