Haiti Earthquake and the Aftermath

Visit to Thomonde with CI partner Project Medishare

2010-09-15T17:35:00.017-04:00

In August, I had the chance to visit with Project Medishare, a Cross International partner that is involved in a number of community health interventions in an area called La Hoye. La Hoye is in Haiti's Central Plateau region and sits near the border of the Dominican Republic. The below photos show the area clinic that is being rehabilitated through the support of Cross International and USAID. Medishare is collaborating with the Haitian Ministry of Health in the process and will run the clinic once it is completed.
In the meantime, Medishare has medical staff providing services in an area school. Medishare hopes to have at least a section of the clinic construction completed by October so they can make the move before the start of the school year.

Project Medishare provides support services such as medical care, psychosocial support, and education (paying of school fees) to area vulnerable children and their families. Medishare is also coordinating an income generating activity with the mothers of some of these children. In addition to dealing with increased cost of food, many of these women opened up their homes and are now caring for extended family that moved in since the eartqhuake. The women are now being trained to make dolls out of socks, which will eventually be sold in the U.S. The extra income coming from this project will go a long way for the women as they struggle to meet the needs of their families.

We then drove out to an even more rural area called Hycauqes, where Medishare was running a mobile clinic in a church. This was one of the most rural parts of Haiti I have ever seen. As we drove, I couldn't believe how much open space and land there was with so few people. We drove on walking paths through the bush and had to scope out ahead on foot a couple of times to determine if it was going to be passable. Roads in the area are basically non-existant and it showed when we got stuck in some heavy mud with our new Toyota Land Cruiser. Luckily, we had just purchased a tow rope and we had two vehicles traveling together on that particular day. I had figured that we might be using the tow rope to pull out other vehicles. Little did I know that our brand new vehicle would be the one that needed the help. Our project staff seemed impressed with my skills in dealing with the mud. They didn't understand when I tried to explain that I used to drive through the mud for fun in Ohio... The work Medishare is doing in this part of Haiti is really impressive, and truly defines the meaning of community health. They are bringing quality health services to the people in one of the most remote parts of the country.

Closer to the Medishare office in Thomonde, they are taking final steps to begin production at their Akamil facility. Akamil is a vitamin fortified, highly nutritions food product that is made with local ingredients including maize and beans. The factory, which will create jobs and support the local economy, will support malnourished children, pregnant women, and people living with tuberculosis or HIV/AIDS. If all goes as planned, the product will be available for distribution to Cross International beneficiaries by the end of October.

Visit to Jeremie with CI partner Haitian Health Foundation

2010-09-15T00:10:00.012-04:00

I thought it would be nice to post a few pictures from some recent site visits to Haitian Health Foundation in Jeremie and Project Medishare in Thomonde. Through their partnership with Cross International and USAID, HHF and Medishare provide support services such as education, nutritional support, medical care and psychosocial support to vulnerable children, and their families.

We spent two full days in Jeremie visiting with a long-time partner of Cross International, Haitian Health Foundation (HHF). In addition to the support services mentioned above, HHF is using innovative approaches to spread HIV Prevention and destigmatization messages. In between our various management meetings, we had the opportunity to visit a number of those activities in action. We visited two separate youth group meetings during our stay. These pictures show youth delivering prevention and HIV destigmatization messages through theatre, song, and dance. The involvement of youth in delivering health and prevention messages to younger children is a key strategy of the Cross Haiti program.

Cross International also supports a girls soccer program that combines soccer with a responsible sexuality training program. Girls don’t typically play soccer in Haiti, but through this program girls from neighboring villages are provided opportunities to play on organized teams, and to compete in games, tournaments, and championship events. In oder to join a team, the girls must attend six days of classes in Female Rights, Responsible Sexuality, Anatomy and Physiology, Family Planning, etc. The program comes at a critical time for the girls as many have lost family or opportunity for education since the earthquake. Soccer provides the girls with a sense of normalcy, keeping them busy through the summer and out of trouble. We had the opportunity to visit a game in the town of Moron (pronounced mow won) The game we saw was interesting… There was definitely some talent on the field, but the girls need some coaching, and the coaches could probably use some extra training.

From the Florida beach to the Haiti mountains...

2010-08-09T23:32:00.016-04:00

Many of you have asked us where we are living and how we are adjusting to our new life in Haiti and I am happy to report things are moving along quite well! The housing in and around Port au Prince has become difficult to secure with the large number of foreign aid workers arriving over the past six months. With that in mind, we consider ourselves lucky to have found a comfortable one-bedroom apartment located in a secure compound. Our new place is located in Boutillier, a small community above Petionville and just off the main road to Kensecoff (for those looking on a map).

At times, it can be easy to forget that we are in Haiti because we seem so far from the hustle and bustle of Port au Prince. Within our compound we have a great deal of vegetation, including mango and avocado trees! At night we are surrounded by the loud calls of the crickets and frogs, which are a welcomed reminder of Ohio summer nights. Of course the tarantulas and lizards are a quick reminder that this isn’t Ohio! We have had a few surprise guests inside the apartment, check below! Our family room is surrounded by sliding doors, which allows the cool mountain breeze and occasionally even the clouds to pass through on overcast days! We are fortunate to have such comfortable living accommodations here under the circumstances.

The unwanted House Guest!

BLOG FOCUS IS SHIFTING... NOW MIKE & MICHAELA IN HAITI

2010-07-22T16:56:00.006-04:00

Family, friends, and new friends that have discovered our site:

Many of you have been waiting patiently for a new blog entry and we appreciate the kind reminders to get back to sharing Mike's Haiti experience. Life is simply moving at a pace that is tough to keep up with at times.... Mike is taking a temporary retirement from blogging and nicely asked me to pick up the story from this point.

It's six months after the earthquake and our lives have changed drastically in what seems like a very short period of time. We can now consider ourselves residents of Haiti, although our parents might wish otherwise. We've faced a series of important decisions over the last few months about our living arrangements, storage for our belongings, selling cars, possibly buying a home, etc but oddly enough the decision to move to Haiti was probably the easiest. I'm not sure that Mike and I ever had the BIG talk about moving to Haiti or at least I can't recall one. I think it was more of an understanding that this was the path we would take and we would do it together. It was clear just weeks after the earthquake that Mike was feeling a strong pull towards Haiti and traveling back and forth was no longer enough time to get the work accomplished. The travel was already a struggle and the trips were becoming more frequent and longer.

Mike has spent months on the details of moving his job to Haiti and has opened a new office with the Cross Haiti staff. We are also settling in to our own place here in Haiti and look forward to having visitors!

A BIG Thanks to our families and friends for the support and well wishes! Your kind words are appreciated.

Next up:
Pictures of our new place
My first visit to a Refugee Camp
Soccer in Haiti

Back to Haiti

2010-04-20T18:56:00.001-04:00

OK, it’s been way too long since I’ve posted something. Things have been crazy to say the least, but that’s no excuse for letting this blog go entirely…

I’ve been back and forth to Haiti a couple of times since my last post, and each trip was very eventful. Aftershocks have calmed significantly. There were a few very strong shakes in the weeks immediately following the quake, but during my most recent visit I only felt one very small shake. Still, I find myself constantly thinking about being prepared for aftershocks. I refused when the hotel I stayed at asked me to move from the 1st floor to the 4th floor for fear of not having time to make it out of the building during a quake. Any time I walk into any building I find myself thinking about where the closest exits are. I don’t expect to experience another major aftershock, but better to be ready nonetheless.

Our big news is that my wife, Michaela, and I will be moving to Haiti to live and work beginning in June. It’s something we had been discussing quite a bit since the earthquake. The need in Haiti is great, and I feel that I can be more effective in my job while I am on the ground. I will continue to manage activities out of our Haiti office and Michaela will search for a work opportunity in the education or psychosocial field where she can put her school counseling background to good use.

Work hours in Haiti have been crazy, as there's always more to do. I’m constantly busy, balancing my time in the office dealing with administrative issues and fielding e-mails, visiting our program partners, completing reports for our donors, and attending numerous meetings in between. We hired a shipping coordinator in March to help manage our relief distributions and he's done a great job, so that has helped tremendously.

With the major influx of organizations coming into Haiti, there has been a huge increase in demand for nice housing. The home and apartment rental prices have doubled and tripled in some cases. Traffic has been insane. Many of the back roads throughout the city are blocked, so traffic is naturally funneled up and down the main roads. One day it can take you 20 minutes to get somewhere, and the next day it can take you an hour and a half.

Rainy season has officially arrived. It has rained through the entire night on a number of occasions, making life even tougher for people living in camps. About thirty camps in the Port-au-Prince area have been identified by the Camp Management cluster as being at a higher risk to flooding and planning is underway to have them relocated to safer areas.

At the same time, life in camps is getting a bit better. People are getting creative with small businesses such as barber shops and restaurants under tarps. Electricity has been wired in, and it's now common to see groups of people circled around a tent watching soccer matches. This is the new norm…

Most organizations, including Cross International, are beginning to move from a short-term response to mid and long-term responses. It is a transition from the "relief" phase to the "recovery" phase. We know that shipping rice and beans to Haiti to give away is not a sustainable activity. Focus is moving to education, transitional housing, cash for work, and psychosocial support programs among other things. As delicate as the situation currently is in Haiti, there is much hope for the future given the amount of attention the country is receiving from the international community.

Looking back, I can’t help but wonder why our office building sustained almost no damage in the earthquake, while almost every building and home in the area either fell or had major damage. I don’t think it was any mistake that I happened to arrive in Haiti on the morning of the earthquake, and I don’t think it is any coincidence that Michaela and I don’t have any kids, don’t own a home, and have basically nothing else holding us back from making the move. We took our time in making this decision, but eventually decided that it was all part of the master plan.

Time out...

2010-02-09T01:31:00.002-05:00

It was good to be home. I weighed myself and found out I had lost 10 pounds in 10 days. I did my best to relax over the weekend, but it was impossible to focus on anything but the earthquake. Between friends, family, work colleagues, media, I felt like I was talking about it 24/7. When I wasn’t talking about it, I was reading about it or following on the news. Rubble… Logistics… Aftershocks… Rescues… Orphans… Kidnappers… It never ended.

How is it that the earthquake occurred on the day I arrived in Haiti? I mean what were the odds? Clearly, I was meant to be in Haiti when it happened, and clearly I am supposed to be part of the relief efforts. But I couldn’t stop thinking about what my role would be in helping. I felt like the last eight years of my life had all been in preparation for this very moment and it was time for me to step up in a big way.

I went into the office very focused on Monday morning and did everything I could to help coordinate our relief efforts. Daily meetings at 10:00 AM serve as a time for the management team to come together to share updates and resolve issues. Mike and Claudio were able to hit the ground running with fresh legs and ample supplies. As we received more and more information from our partners, we did our best to meet their needs through cash grants and distributions of commodities such as food, water, and medicines.

Cross International staff members gave me a very warm welcome back in the office. I received hugs from just about everyone, even had a shirt ruined from a lipstick stain to prove it. I must have had twenty people come up to me in the office to tell me how they and all of their friends had been praying for me while I was gone. People back in the office were concerned about my well-being and suggested that I check in with a counselor to make sure my head was straight. I felt fine though minus the fact that every once in a while I felt like the ground was shaking. It was kind of like having come off of a boat after a full day on the water.

The needs of our partners outside of Port-au-Prince, partners like Pwoje Espwa and Haitian Health Foundation, were increasing by the day as tens of thousands of people fled from the city in search of food and shelter. Reports were that up to 100,000 people had fled out to the Grandanse region which meant that families that typically had six or seven people in a household now had eleven or twelve.

The death toll had surpassed 100,000 and was quickly approaching 200,000, and about 300,000 injured people were being treated. It is expected that about 10,000 people lost either all or part of a limb. There were approximately 250,000 houses destroyed, 30,000 business disrupted, and 90% of area schools were destroyed. 60% of the government buildings were destroyed including the National Palace! Port-au-Prince looked like a war-zone and it wasn’t going to change overnight. Fortunately for me, I had the ability to take a time out. Just like that I was able to hop on a plane to Miami and get some R&R before planning my trip back down. But I couldn't stop thinking about all of those people who were still sleeping on the streets of what was once Port-au-Prince. They didn't have that option. I would do what I could from Florida, but felt the urge to get back down ASAP.

Day 10: January 21, 2010

2010-02-06T07:48:00.006-05:00

I was told to be at the airport two hours early to assure that I was able to get through the lines, out to the tarmac and onto the plane. It was very important that the plane was prepared to depart at our timeslot of exactly 1:10 PM. With only one runway, the flight traffic was so heavy that there was a chance we would not be able to depart at all if we didn’t make it.

I definitely still had mixed feelings about departing Haiti. Of course I wanted to get back to see my wife and relieve family and friends of their concerns about my well being. And yes, I was looking forward to contributing to management meetings in our HQ office. But at the same time I felt a lot of guilt. I told myself that no matter what I would refuse to spend any more than one week back in Florida.

There were crazy lines outside the airport when I arrived. Commercial flights were closed, but because free rides to the U.S. were being given to U.S. citizens, thousands of people were trying their chances. U.S. immigration had taken control security and I noticed a few Haitian-American servicemen walking around helping out with translation. As I stood line awaiting my turn, I noticed that about one out of every three people who showed up was getting turned away. It was sad to see loved ones separated from each other because of lack of proper documentation. People were desperate and were ready to do anything to get out of here.

The owner of the jet, who had flown in to deliver supplies to Save the Children, was on his way home to New York but had agreed to stop in West Palm Beach to drop me of and refuel. This could not have been any more convenient as my wife works in West Palm Beach and would be getting out of school just as the plane touched down.

The jet was impressive. I have done a lot of flying over the last 10 years, but nothing like this. There were only four seats in the front area, a dining table in the middle section, and then beds to lie down on in the back. It was a shock to see, and couldn’t have been any further from the misery I had been around for the past 10 days. My thoughts were scattered. On one hand I felt even guiltier for leaving Haiti in these high-class conditions. On the other hand, I thought “man is this sweet.” I was totally exhausted. As I looked at the chair I tried to guess how for back the seat might adjust.

I was standing in the aisle talking to the pilot when all of a sudden a little old Haitian man walked onto the plane and quickly sat down right next to us. He held a Haitian passport tightly in his lap. When the pilot asked him, “Can I help you sir?” he replied in a very broken accent “Good morning sir.” The pilot asked again, “Can I help you sir?” Obviously not understanding, the man again responded “Good morning sir.” After escorting him off the plane, the pilot told me that just before I had arrived, about 10 Haitians hid in the back of a box truck and made their way around security and out to the tarmac. They were caught and hit with tear gas by U.S. military before being turned away. The pilot wisely checked the baggage compartment twice to make sure nobody was hiding there before takeoff.

The flight was quick and comfortable. As we flew over West Palm Beach, I looked down at the rows of nice homes and swimming pools below and couldn’t help but to imagine everything crumbled to the ground. As the days passed, I realized more and more that the images I had seen in Haiti would stick with me forever.

2010-02-04T22:36:00.001-05:00

DAY 9: January 20, 2010

2010-02-03T01:53:00.010-05:00

I found out in the morning that I was confirmed for a flight out on the private jet for tomorrow afternoon. Because today was going to be my last day, I had quite a bit of running around to do. There were several people and places that I wanted to check up on before my departure, so the driver and I made sure to get started early.

First, we dropped by the home of Gary Downey, a friend and former Peace Corps Volunteer that had been living in Haiti for several years. Gary’s friends and family back in the U.S. had not yet heard from him, so I thought that I stop by and make sure that he and his family were doing O.K. When I arrived, I found that Gary was not around. His wife and children assured me that everyone was fine and told me that Gary was out working. Their house had some very minor damage, but it was still standing. That was great news.

Next, we drove up the hill to visit La Maison l’Arc-en-Ciel (MAEC) in the neighborhood of Boutiliers. MAEC is a key partner of Cross and one of the five sub-partners for the HIV/AIDS program that I have been working on. They have three key aspects to their program. One piece is the community outreach center which supports about 100 families that are affected by HIV/AIDS through services such as nutrition, health care, and psychosocial support. The second piece of it is a community mobilization program in which they educate, train, and support other community-based organizations, enabling them to better address medical and social issues surrounding HIV. Thirdly, the Penettes (the family that runs the program) provide a residence for 36 children who have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS. Over the past year, Cross International had been a major contributor to the construction of a new residence for those children. Construction was scheduled to finish before the end of this year.

In my visit to MAEC, I was hoping to find out about the safety of the children and staff, and also to learn about the extent of the damage at both the current residence and the construction site. When we arrived I found all of the children to be sitting outside in front of the house. Unfortunately I had missed the Penettes as they were downtown working from the Outreach Center.
The children’s spirits seemed high as they happily led me around the house to point out some of the small cracks left as a result of the earthquake. The house had only some minimal damage, but as a precaution the children were spending their time playing and sleeping outside within the compound. Thankfully, all of the children were safe, the Penettes and staff were safe, and while I was not able to go to see for myself, I was told that the construction site had very little damage as well.

On the way back down the hill we stopped into La Reserve, a Petionville hotel and restaurant where I was a regular guest. I had heard that the hotel had somehow made it through the earthquake with no damage, but I needed to see it for myself. This hotel was built on the side of a mountain and was four stories high, and I couldn’t believe that it would have been left without a scratch. Upon speaking with the owners I learned that it was true, the hotel and restaurant were virtually untouched. The more of the city I saw, the more confused I became. It would have been totally impossible to have predicted which building would withstand the earthquake versus which one would crumble. It was very common to see what seemed like a poorly built home standing with very little damage right next to a big beautiful home that had collapsed to the ground. It forced me to think about how lucky I was to have been in one of the few buildings that just happened not to have fallen…

The next place I wanted to visit was the Norwich Mission House. Haitian Ministries of the Diocese of Norwich was another long-time partner of Cross International. In addition, I have had some great friends work as director of the mission house over the years and had many wonderful memories from my frequent stays there. I had already heard reports that the house had fallen and that staff members had been rescued after having been trapped under the rubble. Part of my desire to go there was simply curiosity. It was hard to imagine that what was once such a beautiful house, a place I had spent a lot of time, was totally destroyed. I also wondered if any Norwich staff had been back since the house had been evacuated and if I might be doing them a favor by stopping by to check things out.

The extent of the damage became very real when I pulled up to the house and found that the front barrier was destroyed and had crumbled across the street. The security guard wasn’t there to greet me. I climbed up and over the wall and quickly noticed that the entire house had collapsed. This had been a beautiful two story house and now it stood no more than a few feet from the ground. I circled around the back of the house noticed the remains of the second floor bedroom and bathroom that I had previously stayed in.
As I recognized different pieces of art, pictures, and paperwork scattered around the edge of the house, I wondered if the Norwich Diocese staff would appreciate getting some of it back, or if it would only create more pain. I decided that if it was me that I would appreciate receiving it. I decided to collect what I could and planned to store it at our office until someone from their team was ready to pick it up.

On the way back to the office we decided to make one final stop by the Hotel Villa Creole. I had not yet been in touch with Ellen, my friend and colleague from Project Medishare, and I had a feeling she would be there. Project Medishare is another major partner of Cross International and one of the five partners working on our government grant. I walked into the hotel and found Ellen sharing a table with a bunch of reporters in the partially destroyed restaurant area. It was so great to see a familiar face and to catch up on events of the past week. We were both totally exhausted. I was surprised when Ellen informed me that the Project Medishare office had collapsed, and that the housekeeper had been caught inside. Thankfully, she was able to get out and find the treatment she needed. All of the rest of the Medishare staff was otherwise safe.
This report of the Medishare office falling really hit home again. When considering options for office space back in April of last year, Cross International had all but settled on leasing office space from Medishare. At the very last minute we decided that we were going to need more staff than originally planned and therefore would need more space than what was going to be available for us with Medishare. Needless to say, I’m glad that things worked out the way they did.

Day 8: January 19, 2010

2010-02-01T01:17:00.004-05:00

I spent Tuesday morning in the office meeting with Save the Children staff. Among other things, we further discussed ideas for collaboration and logistics in our relief efforts. I also spent some time working with Kathryn, their Health and Nutrition Advisor, on creating an organogram for their emergency health programs.

In checking my e-mails later that morning, I learned that two of my colleagues, Mike and Claudio, were confirmed for flights down to Haiti on Thursday via Santo Domingo. I began exploring flight possibilities to leave on either Thursday or Friday, which would give the three of us some time to sit and catch up before my departure. Save the Children colleagues mentioned that I might be able to catch a ride out on a private jet. Apparently, one of their donors was using his jet to transport medical supplies in and out of Haiti and was scheduled to come in on Thursday.

I was concerned about our Haiti office staff. Each of them had been accounted for and was safe. The problem was that the banks were still closed and staff members had no way of accessing their salaries, which was typically wired in from the U.S. each month. I requested that at the very least, some extra cash be brought down by Mike and Claudio to provide the staff with an advance on their salary. As it would turn out, we were going to be able to provide each of them with a gift of $500. This would go a long way, especially for Guerline, the housekeeper. Guerline had lost her home, her clothes, everything, and was now sleeping on the street. To put it in perspective, $500 is double what she otherwise makes in a month.

I went back to Hope Hospital later that afternoon to confirm that Gladys had made it back, and to pick up the satellite phone that she was carrying down for me. I found the hospital grounds to be a very chaotic. Gladys had arrived, a team of American doctors had arrived, a team from World Vision (including President Richard Stearns) had arrived, and now I had arrived. Once I managed to track down Gladys she told me that the ride over had been smooth and she was ready to get to work. I was sad to find out that the doctor I had met yesterday was unable to save the woman in the case of the complicated pregnancy.

Gladys had purchased most of the supplies and medicines she needed in the D.R. with funds from Cross International. On top of that, she received another load of supplies from World Vision. While I could see the pain Gladys was feeling in her eyes, she was surprisingly calm. She was in the zone. Gladys’ country had suffered greatly and I knew that the fact that she hadn’t been there to help tore her up. Her daughter and the hospital staff had been entirely overwhelmed. They had been up against a challenge far too great for anyone to handle. The team had seen thousands of victims, each case more devastating than the next, and they had lost many patients along the way. Supplies were limited, space was limited, and staff was limited… At one point they were forced to temporarily close the hospital so that they could take the time to try to wash the mattresses that had been drenched with blood. It had been a total nightmare.

At 4:53 PM all of Haiti observed a moment of silence for the lives that had been lost in the week following the earthquake. After a long string of silence, Gladys spoke.
She spoke and prayed with so much conviction, I was totally blown away. I didn’t realize that she had it in her. Gladys asked God for strength and courage, and then promised to fight with everything she had in her. The hospital’s fearless leader was back and had arrived with both a plan and a lot of back-up. Gladys and her team would undoubtedly overcome any obstacles that lay in their path.
The spirit and the sense of hope that Gladys brought back to Hope Hospital was exactly what the people of her community needed. When I opened up my eyes and looked around me, I realized that Gladys had brought everyone to tears. Helicopters passed overhead as the group sang songs of thanks and praise. It was unreal. The arrival of Gladys at Hope Hospital was truly a symbol of a new beginning.

Day 7: January 18, 2010

2010-01-29T20:18:00.007-05:00

Everyone had been nagging me to come home for a few days now. My parents, my wife, my work colleagues, my friends, they all felt that it was time to come home. While I appreciated everyone’s concern for my safety, I didn’t want to leave. This disaster was not a reason for me to cut my trip short; it was a reason to stay longer. At the same time, I felt very helpless as I compared what I was getting done to the amount of suffering I saw in the street every day. I couldn’t help but wonder if I was doing everything I could to help. Was I being as efficient and effective as I possibly could? What was I going to be able to accomplish in Florida from our office?

I started my day by catching up the rest of my unread e-mails and then was able to connect into our Florida office through Skype and participate in our Emergency Relief Management Meeting. We began by summarizing our efforts thus far. Our focus had been on supporting our partners that were providing medical care to earthquake victims. Money transfers were made to partners such as Medishare, Cure International, and the Hope Hospital in Port-au-Prince. We had also been able to access food that we had in storage in the city to feed people who were displaced. Additional supplies of food, medicines, water, and other goods were also scheduled to be airlifted in the coming days. I had been coordinating assessments of our partners and assessing the damage needs throughout the city, and those assessments were already being used to respond to the needs.

It was time though, to organize our efforts and begin laying out our short, mid, and long-term strategy. After a thorough discussion with our HQ management team, we were able to develop a draft outline for our short and mid-term efforts.

In the short term (Jan-Feb ’10) Cross International response would be as follows:
• Coordinate and assist the delivery and distribution of cash and products such as food, water, medicines and clothing with some of our strategic partners that have storage, transportation, and other logistics capability.
• Continue assessments and meet needs of our Haiti partners in Port-au-Prince and outlying areas through cash grants and shipments of needed goods.
• Assist in the delivery of medical care in Port-au-Prince.
• Assist Save the Children carry out education sector assessment in affected areas.
• Resume payments to partners that support teachers through education programs.
• Approach USAID and other donors regarding change of programmatic scope and potential use of funding for emergency needs.
• Solicit requests from partners for long-term grants.

Mid-term strategies (Mar-June ’10) would include:
• Continue distribution of medicines, food, and clothing through partners to areas where displaced persons had congregated.
• Continue the education sector assessment.
• As possible, provide needed support to education partners in order to resume classes.
• Accept grant applications from partners and make decisions on long-term grants to our Haiti partners.
• Assess new opportunities for CI to obtain grants to support ongoing programs.
• Re-assess our HR needs in our Haiti office.

I felt a bit better after this meeting and began to see that I could be useful in helping to better coordinate our efforts from back in our office. Cross International was not going to “save” the country of Haiti overnight, and neither was anybody else, but one thing was clear. We were in this for the long haul.

I headed out in search for Bresma Orphanage to find out how Ali, Jamie, and the supposed 150 kids were doing. I took a few cases of food and water with me to deliver to them in case it was needed. The e-mail we had received provided some typical Haiti directions (turn right at the moto taxi station, drive over the bridge, veer right at the tree that stands in the middle of the road, etc). Needless to say, I had a hard time finding the place. I eventually did find it though, and when I arrived I found out that everyone had been transferred over to another orphanage. Bresma was apparently a network of three different orphanages, each one serving a different age group of children. The folks that I encountered there were kind and indicated that everyone was fine, but that they needed supplies. They provided me with a phone number for Ali along with a new set of directions.

I eventually made it to the right place and just as I pulled up to the house, a U.N. truck pulled in and began unloading many cases of food and water. Ali and Jamie seemed to be hanging in there, but both seemed exhausted. Thankfully, all but 16 of the 150 kids were already in the adoption process. Arrangements had just been made for 50 of them to fly to Holland, and a number of others to France. Still, the house was overcrowded with children. Their biggest needs were cleaning items such as soap, bleach, diapers, and clothes. The girls didn’t even have an extra set of clothes to wear themselves as they had lost all of their belongings in their home. Of course, these were all items that I didn’t have available to give them. I didn’t make any promises, but figured that I would at least be able to gather some clothes to deliver to them tomorrow.

I left there and headed towards Hope Hospital to find out if Gladys, the director, had made it back safely into Port-au-Prince. She had been in India when the earthquake occurred and was making her way back through the Dominican Republic. Cross International had sent her funds to purchase a load of medical supplies in the D.R., which she would carry into Haiti with her. In addition, she was going to be carrying a satellite phone for me that had been sent via our HQ office.

When I arrived, I found that Gladys had not yet arrived, but would be crossing the border tomorrow morning. As I walked around the hospital grounds, I came across an American doctor who was apparently there volunteering his time to help out. Before I could introduce myself, he said anxiously, “Do you have transportation? We have a situation here and we need to get this woman to another hospital ASAP. She is in shock and I’m afraid we are going to lose her. We need blood and there is no blood here.” I suggested that I make a couple of phone calls to determine which hospitals in the area would have the capacity to help this woman. The doc yells, “Write this down… Placenta previa pregnancy… in shock… Find out who can help us!” He disappeared back into the hospital. I tried placing calls through each of my phones over and over, but cell phones still weren’t functioning properly. After two or three minutes the doctor popped his head back out of the hospital door and said, “forget it, there is no time to transport her. We have to move forward here”. I felt terribly as we pulled away from the hospital. This was just another example of unnecessary suffering and loss taking place all over the city because of the lack of needed supplies and medicines.

Late that night, I spoke to Michaela over Skype. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing when she told me that CNN had reported that Ali McMutrie, along with 53 children from Bresma orphanage, had been evacuated to Pennsylvania. What a turn of events! I couldn’t believe how quickly everything had pulled together. When I was there visiting earlier that day, the girls had no clue that there was a chance they would be on a flight out by later that afternoon. As it turned out, all but one of the children had been evacuated. Ali’s older sister, Jamie, refused to leave without the last one. For more on the girls’ story, click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuAuReP99d8

Day 6: January 17, 2010

2010-01-27T13:37:00.006-05:00

On Saturday evening I had become aware of some unused food that was available for Cross International partners. It was being stored in a warehouse near the airport by Help for Haiti, a strategic partner of ours. They had about 23 cases of Vitafood, which is a nutritionally balanced food product made up of rice and a blend of soy, dehydrated vegetables, vitamins and minerals. It was not a lot of food, but was worth a trip as it would be enough to use for emergency distributions for our local partners. 23 cases would serve about 5,000 meals.

On the way down the hill I stopped to visit an orphanage called Divine Mercy. This is an orphanage of about 35 children that Cross International has been supporting through donations of food and clothes for a number of years. I had received word from our office that we had not been able to get in contact with anyone from the orphanage since since the earthquake and figured that it would be good to check in. When I arrived I noticed that the building was still intact, but that it had quite a bit of damage. I found the children in the back yard and could immediately assume that they were no longer using the building. When speaking to the director and caretakers, I learned that the children had been eating less food and sleeping in the yard of the neighboring kindergarten. When I asked if anyone had been hurt in the earthquake, I received the answer I had hoped for, “no, gras a Dye,” which means “no by the grace of God”. When I spoke to the children, they were relatively happy playing in the yard, seemingly clueless of the devastation that was all around them. As expected, the orphanage director pleaded for extra funding for their long-term needs of food, water, and construction of a new orphanage. For the time being, all that I could promise was that I would stop by with a few cases of food on the way back up the hill. I figured this would hold them over for at least a week, buying us time to secure more food.

We arrived to the warehouse and found that we were almost unable to stuff all of the food, along with 10 cases of bottled water into our vehicle, a Mitsubishi Montero. It was so tight that three of us had to squeeze into the front two seats of the vehicle for the ride back. Warehouse space was hard to come by, so I took pictures and noted the dimensions of the space as it was not being used to its full capacity. The space was small, but it may prove to be useful down the road anyways.

On the way back to the orphanage, we came across a small mobile clinic being run by a group of missionaries that was set up right on Delmas 33. I decided to stop to find out how they were doing, what type of care they had the capacity to provide, and what their immediate needs were. Their biggest concern was that they did not have anywhere to transfer people who needed further attention, especially those who had an urgent need for orthopedic surgery. As I considered their options, I was surprised at how few hospitals were in such a populated area. I finally recommended that they try establishing contact with Hopital de l’Universite de la Paix, which wasn’t far away, to find out what kind of services they were providing. A second option would be the U.N. hospital, a bit further down by the airport.

When I returned to the office, I found that nine more Save the Children international staff members had arrived to Haiti. Space in the office was getting tighter by the minute. About half of the staff would sleep at the office while the other half was sleeping at Lee Nelson’s (Save Haiti Director) house. I went over to Lee’s house for dinner, participated in their team meeting, and decided to find a space to sleep on his hard floor for a change of pace from the hard floor at the office. I really appreciated Lee welcoming me into his home as if I were part of the team.

Just after midnight, Save received a call from the BBC London Breakfast Show. BBC had hoped to conduct a live interview with Save the Children staff members, but each of their media folks was sound asleep. Rather than letting the call go, they passed the phone to me so that I could tell them about the efforts being made in Haiti by Cross International. The conversation was short. They basically asked two questions. They first asked “what is the situation on the ground?” and later said, “We have heard reports that there is a lot of confusion on the ground in terms of the coordination of relief efforts. Is that what you are seeing?” I did a pretty good job summing everything up, but couldn’t help but feel that they were searching for more reports of chaos and negative information than what I was offering.

Before I lay down to go to sleep, I made it through a few more e-mails, trying to help coordinate efforts being made from our HQ office. I also received a vague e-mail that described children at an orphanage called Bresma as suffering and in serious need of relief. The cry for help had been sent to our headquarters office by an American woman who was somehow affiliated with the orphanage. The message didn’t say much, but did provide directions and indicated the names of the girls that were running the orphanage, Jamie and Ali. It turns out that I recognized the names right away. The girls were from Pittsburgh and I had met them at a Haiti restaurant in December. We had all been at this particular restaurant for the same purpose: to watch the Thursday night NFL football game. This was the game in which the Cleveland Browns beat the Pittsburgh Steelers for the first time in six years. I figured that because the Browns had won that game I could justify going to check on them the next morning.

People laid across the floor of Lee’s living room like sardines. I was able to find myself a spot to lay down and knew that I would fall asleep as soon as my head hit my rolled up t-shirt, but figured that I would switch back to the office for sleeping quarters for tomorrow night.

Man trapped in the rubble.

2010-01-24T18:12:00.002-05:00

While walking near the office, the morning after the earthquake, I came across a few men that were trying to communicate with their brother who was trapped beneath their home.

Video DAY 2: January 13, 2010

2010-01-24T17:49:00.005-05:00

A 360 degree view of Rue Augustin the morning after the Earthquake, as described in the Day 2 entry.

DAY 5: January 16, 2010

2010-01-23T16:53:00.009-05:00

I was sleeping on the floor in the office now. Thankfully, the Save team had an extra sleeping bag to loan me for the time being. We had an engineer come by the office to do an assessment of the building and it was determined that the two wings of the building were safe to use, but that the middle section should not be used. The 2nd floor of the left wing was the section that Cross International rents. With 30 people working in such a small space, we did some consolidating and offered to open up some of our space to Save staff.

Cell phones and internet began working again, and I quickly found that I had received over 200 e-mails in just a few days. The days were long as I tried to spend as much time as possible in the field during the daylight hours. Meetings, e-mails, and catching up on news went late into the nights.

Day 5

I woke up early to get some computer work done before the Save staff would show up at the office. Things got pretty chaotic during the day with so many people running around, so quiet time with power and internet access was very valuable. We covered all of the standard topics in the morning meeting: Security, Logisitcs, Media, Communications, IT, Finance, Operations, Human Resources, etc. Then the programs sector areas - Food, Water, Health, Nutrition, Shelter, Hygiene, Sanitation,

I had appreciated time working with Kathryn on assessments in Port-au-Prince, so we decided to team up again for a second day of assessments, this time out in Leogane and Petit-Goave. We had heard reports that “Leogane was flat” and that Petit-Goave was also in bad shape. We needed to know what the situation was out there, whether the hospital was functioning, and whether or not people were receiving any of the attention of the international community.

I took a deep breath as we hit the road. It would be a long ride through the city. As we sat in traffic I was forced to look long and hard at some of the down houses and buildings. I couldn’t help but imagine what the people who had lived there had gone through in the past few days. There were signs posted all over the city that read, “Help, need food, water, medicine.” I struggled with the decision of whether or not to open the window for pictures for the smell outside was horrific.

As we drove through the outskirts of Port-au-Prince and Carrefour, I was surprised to see that the road was in relatively good condition. There were displaced people everywhere. While some people slept in the street and others were staying in camps, I noticed that thousands of people were fleeing the city by the minute. Trucks and buses were filling up with people and all of their belongings by the second. Some of them were leaving in search of health care. Others were hoping to go and live with their extended family in their hometown. We noted areas where camps had formed so that we could relay our findings to our office and other stakeholder organizations to better ensure that the people would receive needed attention.

They were right, Leogane was flat. I couldn’t believe how far out of town the damage extended. Here I had originally thought that the hardest hit area might be up by our office. The fact was, the entire West department was wrecked and everyone was going to have to start from scratch. Haiti as I knew it would never be the same. St. Croix, the public Hospital in Leogane, was intact, but had some significant damage. Kathryn had previously worked at this hospital and was very taken back when she saw that the guest house where she had lived had been ripped apart in the earthquake. We met Susie Parker, who now works at the hospital with her husband Jon. She indicated that she and her husband wanted to reopen the hospital to begin taking patients, but we had our doubts. The buiding had cracks in the walls and given the powerful aftershocks that were occurring on a regular basis, Kathryn and I felt that it would not have been safe. We were told that the local nursing school was now being used to serve thousands of people, and that the list of their needed supplies was growing quickly.
We ran into some reporters from AFP who told us that after walking around town all day we were the first sign of any international relief presence in Leogane. Hopefully that would change soon.

The road to Petit-Goave was passable, but partially blocked by large boulders in several areas. The town was also in very bad shape, but not quite as bad as Leogane. We spoke to several different groups in the community. One group at a small camp provided us with some details about their experience over the course of the week and the difficulties that they were facing. There were some mobile clinics up and running where the wounded were being cared for, but the displaced had not received any services. People were kind and patient with us as they answered our questions. They had no way of obtaining clean water, and the shelter they were sleeping under was inadequate. Families took care of each other as they pooled their resources and shared food and water as it became available.

Again, the road back into Port was quiet. We decided to take a different route back up the hill in Port-au-Prince. Sadly, as we drove through the West side of downtown Port-au-Prince, the damage was unavoidable. The place was a freaking mess. Every building was ruined. If it wasn’t already down, then it would need to be torn down anyways. What are they going to do with all of this rubble ? Where is it going to go ? Who is going to remove it? Would it make more sense to rebuild the city somewhere else ? So may questions, so few answers.

Another earthquake

2010-01-20T07:18:00.004-05:00

Just when I thought the aftershocks had died off, I woke up this morning just after 6:00 AM to intense shaking. It lasted for five or six seconds, just as the first one had. I assumed that it may have been stronger somewhere else and soon learned that the magnitude had reached 6.1 near the town of Petit-Goave. When is it going to let up?

DAY 4: January 15, 2010

2010-01-20T06:48:00.013-05:00

With the road cleared, I was finally able to get out of the office and into the field to do some work- work that I felt might have a true positive impact on peoples lives.

I got started early by heading over to the SCMS office to pick up some medical supplies to deliver to Hopital Espoir. As I drove through Delmas and down Rue Freres, I couldn’t believe how many down homes and buildings were out there. There were only a limited number of cars on the road, but people were walking in every direction, many carrying their belongings. Dr. Antoine Fadoul, an old colleague from my days with I-TECH (International Training and Education Center for HIV and AIDS), had agreed to provide us with enough supplies to keep Hopital Espoir functioning while we worked on getting them supplies through the Dominican Republic. By 8:30 AM we were able to supply the hospital with a truck load of items such as gloves, syringes, antibiotics, pain killers, etc. Gladys, the Director of the hospital, was on her way home from India, meaning that her daughter, Natalie, had been left to coordinate activities. Natalie had been swamped with emotion for the past couple of days. I could see it in her eyes. The hospital had all but shut down on Thursday as they had quickly run out of supplies needed to care for trauma patients. I was happy to be able to finally deliver something. Hopital Espoir would now have enough materials to open back up to the public. More importantly, Cross International had a lot more help on the way.

I made it a priority to get back to the office in time to sit in on Save the Children’s 9:30 a.m. staff meeting. I felt that it would be important to collaborate with them as much as possible, that each of our organizations might have a lot to gain from our partnership. Save had about 25 expat staff in country at this point, and each of them with a different technical expertise such as water, food, shelter, health, sanitation hygiene, logistics, security, IT, communications, media, and so forth. While just about all of them spoke French, very few of them spoke Creole or had any experience working in Haiti. Cross International brings a lot to the table in terms of Haiti experience, and has a very strong network of partners to collaborate with in the West department.

After the meeting, it was decided that I would travel with Katherine Bolles, the Save the Children Emergency Health Coordinator, and a news team from ABC to do field assessments at Hopital de Universite d’Haiti (Port-au-Prince general hospital) and at Champs de Mars, the park downtown next to the National Palace. Reports had said that the hospital was turning patients away, and that about 5,000 people had formed a camp at Champs de Mars.

We saw noticeably more damage on the way down Delmas than we had seen on Route Frères earlier in the day. Most people walking were wearing masks to protect themselves from the dust and the smell of death. It is one thing to hear about the damage and the chaos on the news, but another to see it first hand. I had heard that the markets and the banks had fallen, but to actually see these buildings crashed all the way to the ground was shocking. The entire city is filled with rubble and I can’t imagine what they’re going to do with all of it.

When we arrived at the hospital, we found that all of the patients had been removed from the buildings, which were still standing, and were spread out across the compound. We first identified and spoke with the hospital director to develop a sense of what the needs were. He indicated that he had enough people to care for patients and had capacity to take in new patients, but that they lacked supplies to provide the care needed. He listed his critical needs as antibiotics, anesthetics, and materials such as stitches, wipes, gloves and material for making casts. He also commented on the need for more flashlights, tents, and operating beds. He said that one section of the hospital was being reopened and people brought inside, but the rest of it had significant structural damage and remained unused.

I spoke to a couple of families whom had been at the hospital since Tuesday to find out what kind of care that had received. Most people indicated that no nurse had been over to see them, that they had been waiting for days for their operations. One young man had been in a car accident on Monday morning in which he had broken both of his legs. He was receiving a painkiller, but because of the influx of people to the hospital on Tuesday, he had still not received his operation. Families told me that they were receiving nothing from the hospital, but that the people were coming together to make ends meet. When one family had food for the night, then they would share with others, and vice versa. There was otherwise no structure in place for the patients and families to receive food or water. It has been cold this week, so those with no blankets shivered through the nights. All this, yet there were other humanitarian workers and reporters all around. It was frustrating. I knew that there was some help on the way, but wondered if it would be enough or soon enough…

We then went over to Champs de Mars to assess the situation at one of the largest camps that had formed in the country. The situation was bad there. I tried to get an idea of what type of help people were receiving thus far. The conversation started out with about five people, but quickly turned into a group of about 20. While I could hear frustration in their voices, they were kind and appreciative that I was there and that I spoke their language. I felt guilty for being just another “blan“ (foreigner) that came by to ask questions and didn’t bring anything. A young man said to me, “What are our biggest needs? We don’t have anything. Things that are needed for a human being to live a normal life, we don’t have any of them.”

Nearby a UN truck was delivering drinking water, but the line to get up to it seemed to stretch forever. One young man complained about the “air-drop” method of food distribution, saying “to send my child over there into the chaos to try and grab something would have been to send my child to die. We are not dogs.”

My biggest concerns for people in the area were water, sanitation, and hygiene. Children were playing and bathing in the dirty water. I saw only four portable toilets in the area for thousands of people to use. You do the math, it doesn’t add up. People had resorted to defecating all around the area where people were walking, many without shoes. It would only be time before disease might begin spreading.

The return back to the office was pretty quiet. We asked each other, “What can we do right now to help?” It was tough to swallow.

Just as we arrived at the office, a couple of reporters and Save staff members returned from walking in the area that I had identified as having a bunch of trapped survivors. They had rescued a beautiful little girl, Winnie, after she had spent four days in the rubble. It was just the pick-up we needed after such a difficult day in the field. Kathryn teared up as she took the baby into her arms. She quickly got her some water and Plumpy Nut, an energy dense and highly nutritious peanut butter, nourishing her back to health.

Winnie's Story

http://the44diaries.wordpress.com/2010/01/16/tv-crew-helps-rescue-baby-winnie-from-rubble-in-haiti/

I also received word that John Scarboro made it safely back to Flordia after being airlifted by the U.N. I was very happy that he was able to get back to his family, as they have suffered greatly. We will continue to pray for David, Joe, and Jim, three of John’s friends and family who are still missing from the collapse at the Hotel Montana.

Each day I think about the thousands of people sleeping down there at Champs de Mars. How long would it last? Where would the people eventually go? Is the situation going to improve? No matter what I do, I’m not going to feel like it is enough.

DAY 3: January 14, 2010

2010-01-19T13:45:00.012-05:00

I woke up again in disbelief that this was all real. Aftershocks had continued through out the night, each one striking more fear into the people around us. There was a lot of work to be done today, none of which was going to be very satisfying. There were three key tasks that needed to be coordinated:

1. We had to get the road cleared. The CI office is positioned up on a hill and typically has three different roads that can be used for exit. With all three of them cut off, we weren’t going to be able to get out with vehicles. The road to Delmas would be the easiest to clear out, but there was one particular boulder about the size of a volkswagon that sat right in the middle of the road. We hired a group of young men, got them some tools, and put them on the job.

2. We had to dig two latrines. We found that the number of people staying in our compound had grown at bit and we realized quickly that we didn’t really have the ability to take care of them. As expected, we found that the ground had about an inch of topsoil and the rest rock. By the end of the day we had one completed and hoped to have the 2nd finished by Thursday.

3. We had to do something about shelter and office space. Thank God that it had not rained. A heavy rainstorm would have had horrible effect on the people of Haiti, creating mudslides and terrible sanitary conditions for those that had already had their lives turned upside-down. We needed a place for people to sleep on the compound, but also needed to set up temporary office quarters for a large number of Save the Children staff who would be arriving over the next couple of days. Save had a couple of temporary shelters on hand, so we began to construct them on the driveway in front of the office. One of them was 15 ft by 25 feet, while the other was 9 feet by 15 feet. We would use the smaller one for office space and the larger one for the neighbors to sleep in.

I was able to connect with Cross International by satellite phone to begin discussing response strategies. Cross International works with a very tight network of exceptional organizations and is in a very good position to coordinate a quick and effective response in the short term. First and foremost, we would send funds and medical supplies to our partner hospitals and groups that can provide medical care to the injured. Hopital Espoir, one of our major partners in Haiti, was slightly damaged, but has remained open and quickly filled up with patients. Medical supplies available in Haiti would run out quickly as people poured into hospitals across the region.

Cross International was able to quickly identify 10 forty foot containers full of medical supplies to send to Haiti, some to be air-lifted and some to be shipped. In addition, we have made cash grants to our partners, Cure International and Project Medishare, to support teams of doctors and surgeons who are setting up field hospitals in the Port-au-Prince area. Garardine Luongo, the Director of Cure International sent this report to Cross after a cash grant was received.

“We have teams (some paid staff) there now and have a schedule of teams going for the foreseeable future (pending flights). We have numerous full time staff working on logistics and coordination…in addition to our own teams, we have led/coordinated/orientations for a number of groups arriving in PaP…which has taken quite a bit of man power… Scott Nelson is dedicated for the long haul

In the first week CURE has done more than 300 surgeries (those are just the ones reported) about 50 castings…and other medical interventions…we are obviously not keeping a record but some folks have been counting!!

We are very conscience of the need to make sure all the money we raise will go to Haiti…

Short term: we are trying to save lives

Intermediate- assist with coordination and bring those with complex surgical needs to the DR (Working with DR government on that)

Long term…looks like this is God calling us to open a pediatric facility for surgery, rehab, and consult with healthcare infrastructure development.”

More details on the Cross International relief effort can be found on our website, www.crossinternational.org/relief.

The Cross International driver, Beaubrun, told me that his fathers’ house had crumbled on Wednesday night. The house had made it through the original quake with what seemed like minor damage, It came down at around 5:00 PM on Wednesday as a result of a strong aftershock. I remembered thinking at the time of that aftershock Wednesday evening, which likely reached between a 4.0 and 5.0 on Richter scale, that it likely caused pain to thousands of people whom were still stuck in the rubble. Thankfully, Beaubrun’s father made it out of the house without problem.

Each day I learned more and more about the extent of the damage here, and each day, I realized that it was worse than I thought. I couldn’t believe it when I heard that Leogane, which is 50 kilometers away, had been flattened.

The Haitian people are up against a lot. While I want to help as much as I can, I had to first worry about the needs of the people here on our own compound. We needed food badly and we were running out of water. The limited amount of bread and peanut butter we had wasn’t cutting it and there wasn’t much else available. Thankfully a team of Save the Children staff arrived that afternoon and had brought in some power bars, canned goods, etc. I was so hungry that I ate a can of chicken curry cold out of the can for dinner. If I was this hungry, then I could only imagine how tough things must have been for those that had lost everything…

Haiti: The Magnitude of a Disaster (as of 15 Jan 2010)

2010-01-18T23:43:00.005-05:00

The link below shows the vast destruction of the Earthquake on Haiti.

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/fullmaps_am.nsf/luFullMap/077C1EDBEA38BB59C12576AD003990FE/$File/map.pdf?OpenElement

Cry for Help

2010-01-18T01:03:00.001-05:00

DAY 2: January 13, 2010

2010-01-17T23:45:00.010-05:00

I woke up at dawn on Wednesday morning to the sound of helicopters flying over and thought, “my God, it wasn’t only a bad dream.” I was in disbelief. The aftershocks began early, typically just a slight shake. But each time this occurred, we would hear the banging of tin roofs in the rubble outside of the office, followed by more screams and crying, some likely out of fear and others out of pain.

We were able to take in some of the news by radio. The U.N. building had fallen and many senior staff members, including the top guy, were missing. The national palace had fallen. The Hotel Montana, a 7 story hotel about a half mile up the road from us, had fallen entirely. The Caribbean supermarket and most other markets had fallen – the earthquake happening at their busiest time of the day. Search and rescue teams were needed urgently.

Phones, internet, and all communication tools other than handheld radios and satellite phones were out. I was wishing I had a satellite phone at the time, as I knew that I would soon become frustrated with my inability to connect with my family and the CI HQ office. This would also be a major obstacle facing organizations that need to collaborate on relief efforts.

I wondered about the Hotel Villa Creole and its condition as I had checked into a room on the basement floor. All of my luggage was there and I would certainly need my bag, with clothes, tennis shoes, and other items if I was going to effectively work out of the office for some time. I decided to try to make my way towards the hotel at around 7:30 AM. Emmanuel, a SCMS staff member from France who had stayed the night with us, would accompany me for part of the way as he wished to get to his home in Pacot.

I took a couple of pictures just outside of our office. The walls of our gate, electrical lines, and broken homes of our neighbors were laying across the street. The crowd traffic on the road was crazy with people walking in all directions. Many were carrying their belongings on their heads. Others I assume were walking to the homes of loved ones hoping to find survivors. There were also large groups of women and children forming in open areas in the street.

As we made it near the Hotel Montana, we found the road totally blocked with what was left of houses that had been standing along the street with debris. Emmanual and I found a walking path down to the street and parted ways from there. The main road, Route Pan-Americane, was chaotic. People were carrying the wounded and their belongings in all directions. While the road was barely passable, a small number of vehicles quickly weaved through the fallen debris in search of urgent medical attention.

When I arrived to the Villa Creole I found that a clinic had formed out in the parking lot. A children’s’ hospital called Petit Freres Petite Soeur, which was at least 5 or 6 stories high and was based right outside the hotel, had fallen entirely. Many of the injured had been transferred to the hotel and groups of doctors who had been staying at the hotel were tending to the wounded. As I walked through the crowd, I ran into Beaubrun, our local driver for Cross International. It was good to see a familiar face.

As we walked inside, we found that the hotel had some major damage, but that the structure was still standing. After a bit of confusion trying to get someone to allow me into my room, I was able to get my belongings and begin making my way back to the office. I fit well into the crowd, carrying my bags down the street just like everyone else.

We took the shortcut up Rue Augustin on the way back and I saw in the daylight the pile of rubble that I had been fishing through the night before. It was a terrible sight – every house was completely destroyed. Groups of people were searching for missing loved ones. Others were trying to dig people out. Bodies were being carried out of the rubble and down the main road. The stench was terrible.

When I made it back to the office and was anxious to hear about how badly other areas had been hit. I was sure that our neighborhood must have been one of the worst off. I hoped that search and rescue teams were on the way to the area as so many people were trapped.

As I was briefed on the morning news by Save the Children colleagues, I was still in disbelief about how much damage was being reported. As expected, I became more frustrated with my inability to communicate with the Cross International headquarters office to explain what I had been seeing and begin planning emergency relief efforts. There were satellite phones on site, but I didn’t have access to them but for a minute or two and the signal was spotty.

I decided that I needed to get busy trying to help. I figured that the search and rescue teams are on the way, so maybe I could help expedite the situation by doing an assessment of our neighborhood and documenting areas that held trapped survivors. I had already seen and heard many, so I thought that I would do another walk-through of the areas of Cineas and Augustin to put together a more thorough report. As I set out on foot, I noticed more bodies piling up in the street. I began wondering how long survivors could last under the rubble. As I walked through the neighborhood and interviewed different members of the community, I had to fight back the tears. There was so much damage that you couldn’t distinguish one house from the next. Every other house seemed to have missing people inside. Some folks had found and saved one or two family members who had been stuck, but were still missing others. Some were keeping the hope that their children were alive, while others were admitting that their children had perished. Some voices that I had heard below the rubble the night before were no longer heard. Did that mean that they had perished, or could it be that they were just unconscious? One gentleman pointed to a section of a house that had crumbled all the way to the ground and said “my daughters are in there – I need help finding them”. It was clear to me that they had likely perished, but I could see in his eye that he would not be satisfied until he saw their faces. These were conversations that I will never forget.

I drew up a small map in my notebook and began charting where people were missing, trying to distinguish between the difference of “missing” and “alive and trapped”. By the end of the day, I had a resulting map that with arrows and notes: “3 missing.. 1 boy trapped… 2 girls missing.. 2 boys and 1 girl missing…” It was bad out there.

When I got back to the compound I found that the number of community members staying at our unofficial camp had increased a bit. I realized that logistical issues would soon become a major issue as we would need food, water, latrines, and either tents or some other shelter for each of them. Most of them were sleeping on the driveway with sheets and the cool temperatures at night were difficult to handle.

My new buddy John was feeling a bit better after having received some good care and treatment of Judith D’Amico, my great friend and colleague at SCMS. John was pretty shaken up though. Some of his team was missing and he needed to find a way over to the Dominican Republic and back to the U.S. ASAP. We stayed up fairly late discussing our days and strategies for relief efforts. Aftershocks that occurred every hour or so were a constant reminder of what we were up against. My adrenaline finally ran out. I had only 3 hours of sleep the night before and was ready to crash. I decided to change things up a bit- I’d sleep in the passenger side of the car instead of the drivers’ side.

Listen to Mike's Audio on the Earthquake

2010-01-17T22:08:00.001-05:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SOoExWsx_c

For the full audio, please visit www.crossinternational.org and click on Emergency! Earthquake hits Haiti.

DAY 1: January 12, 2010

2010-01-17T11:08:00.002-05:00

Dear Friends and Family,

I’m going to stay up late tonight to tell you a bit about my experience in Haiti since the earthquake hit on Tuesday and to explain what my organization, Cross International, is trying to do to help the people whose lives have been turned upside down. Those of you who know me well, know that I am an operations type of guy, and typically prefer to stay out of media / fundraising activities. But the amount of suffering that I have witnessed this week has been so profound, and the need so great, that I have no choice but to reach out in any way that I can.

I’m going to start my story from the beginning and will hope to catch up to the current time within the next day or so, depending on internet connection.

I arrived to Haiti on the morning of Tuesday, January 12th with the purpose of working on the administration of our PEPFAR funded HIV/AIDS grant. After checking into the Hotel Villa Creole at around 11:30 AM, I headed straight to our office to get to work. Cross International shares office space with Save the Children in Petionville, just above Port-au-Prince and near the Hotel Montana. The afternoon flew by as I kept busy with some e-mail exchanges, phone calls, a couple of brief meetings, and the coordination of program activities. While all of our local staff left the building between 4:30 and 4:45, I had intentions of staying a bit late to get through some extra work. Never did it cross my mind that two and a half days later I might still be at the office.

At approximately 5:00 PM, the building began shaking. It took me a couple of seconds to realize what was going on, but as it slowly got stronger, I jumped out of my chair and reached to the wall in the doorway for support. The earthquake stopped for a split second and then began shaking even more violently (we are actually getting some slight aftershocks as I type – every hour or so). I had never been through anything like this before, but knew immediately that we had been through a very serious earthquake. Everything in the office had fallen over and whatever had been on a desk or a table was now on the floor. This included computers, file cabinets, the water cooler, wall decorations, etc. I noticed that there was water flowing across the floor and I quickly realized that the toilets had fallen, broken, and were leaking down the stairwell. After shutting off the water I walked into our conference room to take a look out the window at what had previously been a nice view of the city of Port-au-Prince. What I saw below was a huge cloud of dust rising slowly from the ground over the entire city. The sounds were terrible - screaming and crying from every direction. When I looked out the other window I noticed that our neighbors’ homes had fallen down the hill 20 to 30 feet below. I quickly ran back to my office to check the communications and see if I could make contact with our HQ office and alert them of what happened. The phones were all out, but I was lucky to find the internet still connected and was able to get through on Skype for short calls to both our office and then to my wife. Moments after I quickly explained to them what had happened, the internet signal was gone and all communication was lost.

I met up with some of the Save the Children management staff in the driveway including Lee Nelson, their Haiti Country Director, and also Ian Rodgers, their Senior Emergency Advisor, who just happened to be in Haiti. We began discussing the implications that this earthquake would have on the country and what the highest priorities would be in emergency response planning. The screaming and wailing around us continued, and suddenly it was dark.

I began thinking about the “what if” question that I had heard thrown around by so many Hati development workers over the years. With all of the hurricanes and flooding that has occurred in Haiti, it has been a miracle that Port-au-Prince has never been a direct hit. I think that this has a lot to do with the way that the city is protected from the wind by the surrounding mountains. “A direct hit by a hurricane on Port-au-Prince area would be an absolute nightmare – can you imagine?” Well “it” had clearly just happened and because it was an earthquake, it came without warning. A direct hit on the West region by an earthquake with a magnitude of 7+ was the absolute worst-case scenario for this country.

Lee and I decided to do a quick assessment of our building to determine what level of damage had been done. Amazingly, the structure suffered very little damage. We later discussed the possibility of going out into the dark to help the people of the community, but determined that it would not be a good idea for reasons of security, safety, and our lack of ability to really help anyone. We didn’t have the medical expertise needed to treat the wounded, nor did we have the equipment needed to free people from the debris.

I sat still and listened to the sounds coming from the city for some time. The crying continued, but I was amazed to hear pockets of people singing together, praising God in this time of crisis. The people of Haiti are truly an amazing people. Most of them having seen so much difficulty in their lifetimes, but somehow the majority of them hold their faith in God above all else. They are truly some of the happiest, most loving people that I have ever met and it kills me to witness them suffering like this.

I began thinking about some friends and former colleagues of mine who work for Supply Chain Management Systems (SCMS), an organization located just a couple hundred yards up the road. At around 7:30 I decided to walk up there to see how they were doing and if they needed any help. What I saw by the light of my headlamp when I walked out the gate was totally shocking. All houses had major damage and about 50% of them were completely destroyed. I had to watch my step as the rubble and debris stretched across the road in both directions. I then realized that getting anywhere by vehicle anytime soon was out of the question. The street was full of people walking in both directions, some of them searching for lost loved ones and others carrying their belongings in search for new shelter. As I walked I came upon groups of hundreds of people that were all making camp in open areas. Many of the groups were singing worship songs.

As I approached the SCMS office I noticed that there was a large group of people grouped together on the street out in front of their office. The medical staff from SCMS was treating their wounded neighbors, including several American and European citizens. A man and his wife were both in critical condition, one with a collapsed lung, and both of them with head and other body wounds. A gentleman named John, who survived after being on the 5th floor of the nearby Hotel Montana when it fell, was also able to walk over and get medical attention. When I arrived folks were discussing the best approach to getting the wounded evacuated for treatment. A US embassy worker was on site with a radio and in contact with the U.S. Embassy staff who were trying to get vehicles to the area.

Eventually a team of 5 local U.S. Embassy staff members arrived to help with the medical evacuation. Unfortunately, they had parked very far away and walked up because of the blocked roads. There are typically three different routes to get out to the main road from that location, but all were blocked. There was some question as to how bad the road going towards the Hotel Montana was, and we decided that a small group should go to scout out the conditions before making a final decision. I decided to go with two of the US embassy workers to try and figure out the best option.

We did not get more than 100 yards up the road when a woman ran up to us crying and yelling “My baby, my baby, you have to help me! Please! She is right over here. Please don’t leave us!” It turns out that one of the guys walking with me was carrying a sledge hammer, so she thought that we might be able to help. This woman was totally beside herself and there was no way that we could have walked away from her without at least taking a look. I decided that one of the embassy workers (James) and I would go with her to see if we could help and sent the other guy to finish the road exploration and to report back to SCMS camp.

The next hour would be the most difficult time of my life. As the woman (Darline) led us up a side road called Cineas toward what was her home, I found the entire section of housing was totally wrecked. James and I hadn’t really known what we were getting ourselves into - the woman lived approximately 150 yards away from where we were. As we walked up the road several groups of people ran up to us yelling things like “Come help us first! My sisters are right here – it will only take a second! We only need to use the hammer to break them out!” Others said “There are people trapped over here! Please just stop here quickly before you go on!” I felt entirely hopeless. As the people argued, I felt inside that I likely wasn’t going to be able to help any of them right away. We checked about 10 houses or so during the next hour, in some cases climbing over what used to be the roofs of people’s homes to get to those whom were stuck. In some cases people were only stuck by their legs or feet, in other cases I could only see arms or legs sticking out of the debris, and in other cases I saw nothing at all but could hear children and women talking or crying. One woman was pregnant and stuck from the waist down. I couldn’t get near some of those who were trapped as it would have been too dangerous to climb over destroyed homes and under parts of other partially standing homes. We were only able to help one woman escape as her husband refused to wait any longer. He broke the cement covering her legs with the hammer and while she came away with some injuries, she was freed.

My fears were the worst for Darline and her daughter who was trapped deep below the rubble. While I could hear the infant crying, I knew that there was nothing I could do and that it would likely be some time before search and rescue teams were going to be available to help. To begin pounding above where the family was stuck was out of the question as the impact of the hammer could have created more hurt then help. I did my best to explain to Darline that help would be coming soon, that search and rescue teams who had the proper equipment needed to help her family were on the way. I felt terrible as I spoke. I knew deep down inside that it might be days before the right kind of help was available.

James and I made our way back towards SCMS camp and found that the two most critically wounded people there had been relocated. They were being carried down the back way to Bourdon where they would then be transferred to the U.S. ambassador’s residence for air evacuation. After describing the situation to our Save the Children colleagues, we offered that the SCMS staff, and the rest of the wounded being cared for might relocate to our compound, which was still enclosed, had plenty of space, and had light from our generator and inverter.

That evening Judith D’Amico, our close friend at SCMS, continued to care for the injured staff on the compound. We had relocated approximately 20 people to our compound, a number that has seemingly grown by two or three people each day. We have not opened up the compound to serve as a full out shelter for the public as we do not have the resources necessary to provide for that many people.

We did a quick search through our office space that night to try and locate food. We found enough bread and peanut butter to get a little something in everyone’s belly. It was a long night as we tried to help the wounded get comfortable and find a place in the yard to sleep. Sleeping in the office would not be an option as we were afraid at what damage the aftershocks might have on the building. Some therefore piled into cars while others lay in the driveway. I had been up since 5:00 AM and was entirely exhausted. After sitting up for a few more hours discussing response strategies with Lee and Ian, I decided it was time to close my eyes, even if just for a few hours. Tomorrow would be another long day.