January 28, 2010 - Arrival in Haiti

It was a little over two weeks ago when a 7.0 earthquake hit Haiti. The reports kept flooding in from everywhere about how bad it was, but what was even more concerning was how little everyone knew about the extent of the damage. There are an estimated 10 million people living in Haiti. The worst hit area was Port-au-Prince, with 2 million residents. Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere, with 80% of its citizens living under the poverty line, and with no real building codes. In the United States, we have strict standards for construction, using rebar reinforced concrete. In a place like Haiti, the poor construction and lack of infrastructure provides no safe haven for this type of earthquake. At first there were reports of 50,000 dead, then 100,000, and now it’s been confirmed that there are more than 150,000 dead. In 1989, an earthquake struck San Francisco, also measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale. That quake killed 63 people. Two earthquakes, measuring the same on the Richter scale, and yet the loss of life is so different. Buildings in Haiti simply crumbled within minutes burying an unknown number of people, the amount of whom, we may never know.

Within a day of the earthquake, many were writing to the First Response Team asking if we were going to respond. My heart was aching for those suffering from the earthquake, but I saw no other option but to write back and explain that we did not have the resources to respond. With the present economy and our young age as a non-profit, we are still struggling to stay afloat. To haul heavy equipment likes ours, overseas, is an expensive operation. I didn’t see a way that we could do it. But each time I went to send my response, I couldn’t. I could not hit the send button. I was haunted by the scenes of people standing in the rubble; people trapped with others trying to break them free. Then I saw a picture of a woman standing up straight, from the waist down wedged in by concrete, with her upper body free. She was stuck, and she looked into the camera with the eyes of sadness and hopelessness. There were tens of thousands of people buried, and I just could not turn away.

I had never shipped equipment overseas before, but I was determined to figure it out. The other conflict I was trying to mitigate was how we would help the people of Haiti without abandoning our commitments to America. With the looming storm season, I decided the only way we were going to be able to do both was to commission a new fleet of equipment and a new team just for Haiti. I quickly got on the phone and over a 4 hour period was able to secure a Peterbilt Tri-Axle dump truck from The Pete Store and a Towmaster Trailer from Towmaster. Then Cleveland Brothers CAT decided to donate the use of a CAT 312 Excavator with a claw/thumb. For those of you who don’t know what any of that is, basically it is enormous equipment that has the capability of grabbing, lifting and hauling large pieces of quake debris such as slabs of concrete.

Over the next week it was a difficult task to figure out how to transport all of this gear around the country and get it all to converge at one of The Pete Stores, which ended up being in Baltimore. When on site Jeff Arscott and his team took the truck trailer and excavator and began to fabricate a hitch and get everything ready to head out of the country. The crews worked around the clock while I worked on securing a ship to get our gear to Haiti.

I called Samaritan’s Purse, a great organization with tremendous resources, who also have the experience of helping communities devastated by disasters all over the world. We were able to partner with them and put some of our gear on a barge that they secured.

I’m making it sound simple and straightforward, but it was far from it. Securing trucks, trailers and a barge is no easy task, especially when you are heading into a country where most of the ports have been destroyed.

The Team and I flew into Port-au-Prince just a few days ago, and our gear arrives first thing tomorrow morning. Our first task is going to take place in one of the poorest communities in the country; a community that also has one of the worst crime rates in the world. It’s called Cité Soleil. There are 200,000 people living there and more than 90% of them are without a job. Aid organizations have been having a difficult time distributing aid in that area because of the challenges with security. When I went down to see the city, there were thousands of people in the streets getting water from a broken pipe. The pipe is purposely cracked, and a few hours a day the government opens the pipe so that people can clean themselves and get water.

We believe that if trucks with emergency aid supplies come in, the crowds will overtake the trucks. There is a need for an organized distribution so that more people don’t get hurt. There is a church in the community that has an enormous broken wall around it, but it has completely crumbled. We are going to take our equipment down to this location as soon as the boat lands, and we will immediately remove all of the rubble around this church and assist in erecting a new wall. After the wall is up, Samaritan’s Purse will be able to set up a stable medical clinic and bring in the needed supplies that the community needs. With the new, safe and secure environment, emergency aid can be distributed safely and in an organized fashion.

After that we will be headed to another nearby city called Leogon. At first glance, 90% of the city has been destroyed.

I think I’ll stop here. I don’t want to even begin to describe the sites. It would not be right. Everyone has seen enough. The sadness and pain left in the wake of this catastrophic devastation is beyond words. We are here. There are many here. I hope our resources will be unique and will begin to make a difference. The team and the new gear will be here for at least one year. We can’t heal the wounds here, but we can help in our way. Somehow, someway everything is going to be ok.