Journalists are trained to be skeptical. I do not have the resources to track every story I hear, but I'm not discounting them either. I see the effect of the storm, and it helps me believe. Some streets are washed smooth where rows of houses once stood. A flat river bank is now carved into a dangerous cliff of dirt.
Trees are upended, capsized by the water, their roots now flopping in the air.
Many Hondurans talk of how death continues to grip their country, grabbing more life from the earth. One story is of a teen-age boy who gallantly saved people from floodwaters. But after he returned to his own home, he found that his mother, father and siblings had drowned. People say the same young man who had spent the day saving lives then took his own. He was found, dead, after swallowing poison.