Ground Zero -- Leogane

By Adam Koons, Director of Relief, International Relief and Development

PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI -- Today we traveled outside of Port-au-Prince and into ground zero. The town, and district, of Leogane, with about 150,000 residents was closest to the earthquake’s epicenter. And it showed. Although, estimates we had heard of 90% destruction were easily visible, the mayor told us that 100% of the population were affected, since even those few whose homes were not destroyed were afraid to enter their still standing and damaged houses. The entire population was sleeping outside, in makeshift shelters of plastic and cloth, in spontaneous settlements within and outside the town center. The police were sitting outside of a damaged police station. When we found the mayor he was camped outside his broken house. Our visit was a “rapid assessment” to understand the emergency needs, gaps, and the types of activities that IRD would be best suited to provide. The mayor, in short, told us they need virtually everything because the population had lost virtually everything.

In one settlement we visited of around 230 families we met a group of young men who immediately approached our vehicle when we arrived. They explained that they were the self-appointed, volunteer, security committee, formed because even in such areas insecurity and theft are a huge problem and far beyond the capacity of the local police. Both the desperation of the population, which has caused mass looting and crime, and the escape of an estimated 4000 prisoners from the earthquake-damaged central prison, has made such community protection a necessity. It was a perfect opportunity for our IRD team to hand out a number of the wonderful solar charged Sunlight Solar Bogo-Light flashlights we were carrying just for such occasions. The flashlights will improve the group’s ability to patrol at night and thereby the settlement’s security. By working closely with the maker of the lights, that were donated, we ultimately hope to distribute thousands of them soon.

Another settlement we visited completely filled the town football stadium with tiny shelter built shoulder to shoulder. We met a few young men who were making wooden frames for additional shelters. They told us they were salvaging the materials from the destroyed homes in town. And amidst it all, we found children playing, as we often do…. and of course, begging us to take their picture, which, of course, we did. One young boy of about five had a home-made kite of salvaged plastic and recovered string. His kite was aloft about 500!

On the way back to Port-au-Prince, after passing a US Marine helicopter landing site and encampment (the helicopters had been passing low and loud overhead all day), we got another sense of the force that leveled an entire town. We came upon a mile long crevasse in the side of the highway that we estimated to be maybe 15 feet deep.

We have chosen Leogane as one of the primary IRD disaster response sites for our activities that we hope will include water repair, sanitation and latrines, shelter, and perhaps agriculture. So, we will return soon.

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Running on Empty

By Adam Koons, Director of Relief, International Relief and Development

PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI -- Trying to work here is something unimaginable to the “outside world.” It is being widely publicized that one of the very biggest challenges here in the Haiti disaster response is difficult coordination and poor infrastructure leading to difficult logistics. It for example reported that although the quantity of emergency goods being given to Haiti is enormous, the airport has a backlog of 1400 emergency airlift flights in line for permission to fly to an airport that can handle at most 150 flights a day.

But let’s take it down to the personal level. Today I had an important UN coordination group meeting to attend. Our office/house is in the same neighborhood. The meeting was about two miles away and in “normal times” it takes about 15 minutes. But first, before starting out, it took about an hour to find enough black-market fuel to make the trip. The trip took 50 minutes. Along the way we were exposed to people trying to defy physics. The vehicles were already moving in four lanes on a two-lane road. We were inching along on the sidewalk up against the buildings. Then a UN convoy appeared some distance behind and a UN soldier walked up through the traffic ordering vehicles to move over. The only place for us to move over would be actually inside of a building. So we ignored the UN command. But this is par for the course. Along the way we passed a supermarket that had completely collapsed and the ruins were filled with people climbing around trying to see into and reach into the rubble.

Upon return to our house we found that there was, as usual, no electricity. And the bank of backup batteries were dead. The generator that would normally charge the batteries and provide electricity in absence of a public power grid was not able to run. No fuel. So we used the batteries in our laptop computers and blackberries. Until those batteries died. Then we just tried to do whatever we could do on paper. Three hours later a few gallons of fuel were finally found to start the generator. Now the seven of us can get back to work, and try to share the single internet line we have. I now have 700 emails to deal with. But I will use my precious little time on line to download the dozens of critically important attached files to my hard drive……………and to send this short note (which I first composed off-line).

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