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Floods in Honduras Damage Factories
Posted: Tuesday, October 09, 2007
By Gregory Mottola
On October 2, just before 8 p.m., a stream of water tore through Danlí, Honduras, during a heavy rainstorm, damaging some cigar factories and sparing others.
"For a few hours, I thought it was a mini Mitch," said Charlie Toraño, president of Toraño Cigars, referring to the infamous Hurricane Mitch that ravaged Central America in 1998. According to Toraño, the packing and shipping area of his Latin Cigars de Honduras factory was affected the worst. The rains came on violently, causing a stream of water to blast through the factory's front gates, ruining 30,000 cigars -- roughly a day's worth of production for Toraño factory workers in terms of finished cigars.
"It wasn't devastating," said Toraño. "I don't want to blow things out of proportion, but it was definitely very disruptive." In addition to the lost cigars -- which were about to be shipped to Europe and the United States -- Toraño sustained water damage to boxes and cigar bands. His inventory of tobacco in bales was unaffected.
"We're still assessing the damage," said Toraño, "but I estimate the loss at a few hundred thousand dollars."
No one in Toraño's factory was hurt.
René Marcello, owner of Honduras Carribean, a small factory in Danlí, said that the rainstorm caused a mountain spring to erupt, contributing to much of the floodwaters.
"Our factory was three feet under water," said Marcello, who claims to have lost a lot of raw tobacco. According to Marcello, all the Corojo tobacco he had grown and cultivated in Trojes, which is the Honduran side of the Jalapa region in Nicaragua, was destroyed by the flood.
"Still," said Marcello, "it looked like most of the water went straight to the Toraño factory."
Other factories were spared. Christian Eiroa of Camacho Cigars had no damage to report. His Tapanza factory in Danlí was practically untouched. Raices Cubanas, another notable factory known for produces cigars for Tabacalera Tropical, also went unscathed.
Photo Courtesy Maps.com
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