Status

Since the earthquake – all businesses, gas stations etc have been closed. There is no hydro and our house has some damage to the main electrical panel – it has not been on my priority list yet, but will become one hopefully tomorrow, but if not the next day.


I am without phone and without hydro – my “quick” stop by the Canadian embassy to get a quick message out was a laugh – I left after wasting some of my time.

When the earthquake struck – we were at the worksite – it was maybe 4:30-5 pm time window – we had just finished packing up and I was still inside the building, some others were as well, but many were outside washing. The building stood up – I have not inspected it yet, but think only minor damage – 1 or 2 block walls may be cracked/tumbled. Large sections of the perimeter wall that surrounds the site – has fallen and will need to be rebuilt. The structure of the building is intact. As I ran out of the building the earth by that time was shaking very hard – not easy to run. Out of my eye, I saw one block wall tumble beside me, within a few feet – I did not get hit. One of our workers was hit with some other blocks that fell. He had some scrapes – most not too deep, but complained about a lot of pain in his back. Audet our nurse looked at him once we got back to the house – she thought he was okay, but he still complained about a lot of pain – however, by the next day – he seemed to be much better and walking fairly normally. Last I saw seemed he was good.

Our area seemed to have survived fairly well. We only had one house in the ravine immediately behind us collapse – there were however some injuries in the area. We set up a little clinic at our gate at tended to the needs. Once the word got our, more people started coming, but the number was quite manageable – most were fairly small injuries – requiring cleaning bandaging and many stitches. There were a couple of cases at least that we well beyond that. We provided basic medical and told the parents that they needed more.

Throughout the city, some buildings collapsed completely and some seriously damaged - barely left standing. Of course there is also a high percentage (guessing 25-35% that suffered no damage). With the housing in our area – most only received minor damage, but many walls on the perimeter of the property fell. The buildings that were seriously damaged were mostly larger buildings – churches, schools, apartment buildings, businesses. I do not have any access to news so, I can only tell you what I have seen – so might be somewhat limited in scope. I understand that the quake was fairly local to the capital city – here in Port au Prince.

About 9 o’clock on Tuesday evening, we got word that a school had collapsed, It is attached to a church at Delmas 31 (Church of the Rock) – it is a small school and it collapsed – the first floor completely, the top floor partially (about 1/3 of it completely). One of our boys from the church was trapped inside on the first floor – another girl from the church was on the top floor and was able to escape from the damaged building after the quake. We decided that we should put our focus on this problem. A number of the girls in our church are studying to become nurses, so they prepared medical aid to take along with the team. We went down to help out. To make a long story short, I have spent almost every moment of the last 48hrs or so at that school. I have had great support from our youth in stepping in and helping out – including medical at that sight and helping out with the recovery plans etc. I assessed the situation and those that were currently working on it. A few people had opened up passage ways into those trapped using hammers, sledge hammers etc – to work their way through the twisted metal, concrete and debris. I decided that we has some tools to assist – so first trip, I brought a floodlight and some hand tools. When I returned, I was able to reassess the situation further and have some discussion with those working on getting trapped people out. I made trip number two and brought in a little heavier equipment – the generator and an electric hammer. Before I brought it into the site, I determined a plan with those already onsite and then offered the equipment. My role became more of a backup problem solver – when things didn’t work – lights etc, I got them working – when then didn’t know how to use the grinder, and other tools – I gave an impromptu lesson. Not before long, people from the site were coming to me to solve their problems with tools etc. The tools that I brought I am happy to say were all returned and they served a very useful purpose at the site. We worked all night and in the early morning – the first person that we were trying to reach had died before we got to them. A little after that we were able to reach a person and bring them out. We got one out alive. We then worked all the next day and well into the night. We were successful in reaching others, but the way they were trapped made it impossible for us to free them with our equipment.

One of the other men working that had connections and was able to bring in a specialized team on the site. They brought in big equipment – a high hoe and a big front end loader. With these equipment they were easily able to remove rubble and break through concrete, but the issue was how to build and fine tune the process. What they did was to clear and access point into the first floor area. From there we were able to determine locations of some of the individuals. By 1 or 2 am of Thursday morning they were able to rescue another boy. That is now two saved – by the end of the morning – 2 others had been rescued – sadly no others were. In the process – another 18 or so others were recovered. I provided the small equipment to complement the big equipment. We used the electric hammer to cut through each layer from the roof down (now about 3 feet per floor) to get to them. And then moved even more slowly as we got closer.


Tonight is the first time that I have stopped (I haven’t yet, but will) since the earthquake. I have either been at the school or running errands from the school. The kids here from the church at Pastor Michels have been great. They have responded to the situation and have jumped right in as well.

There is so much that I could and should write. I can’t right now – I have been running and can’t even process it. I have seen so much destruction, people with all kinds of injuries and bodies of some that did not make it. Many of course of the ones that didn’t make it are still trapped in the rubble. The smell of death is prominent in the city.

The boy from our church that we had hoped to find and to bring out alive. He was the very last body recovered at the school. A very promising young man and studying theology at the school. He was becoming a Pastor and actively involved here at Pastor Michels. His body was recovered around mid day. At the wishes of his family – we buried him this afternoon. At some point, a service will follow.

We are doing okay – kind of on autopilot right now. It has been very long and hard past couple of days with only little catnaps. Not sleeping indoors – we are still experiencing tremors – I just had one while I was writing this note.

All is well. You likely will NOT hear from me again for a couple of days at least. I have very limited battery power on my UPS that I just bought and NO other power. Hope to solve that over the next day or two. Drinking water and seeing if I can get food is also starting to come up on the list.

Trust me – all is well – especially considering the situation. So far it is calm here in the city and people are mostly very co-operative. I do expect that to change. The prison suffered damage and many prisoners escaped. The main police building in our area collapsed and I believe it was 42 police men were killed.

I have a large number of e-mail messages and thank you for your concern and especially for your prayer support. I have not read your messages – need to solve my power problem first. I do not have phone support.