An Airman with the 118th Civil Engineering Squadron, gives candy to a child at the New Life Children's Home in Port au Prince, Haiti, March 12, 2010. Members of the squadron have been working at the home, a local orphanage that has also taken in many children injured by the January earthquake, building cabinets, storage areas and a medical clinic. Photo by Staff Sgt. Jon Soucy

The U.S. military response to the January earthquake in Haiti was almost immediate.

Within hours, equipment, supplies and personnel began to arrive in Haiti to assist those affected by the earthquake and its aftershocks.

Many Air National Guard units and personnel were among the first to respond to the disaster.

For some, it was a matter of being in the right place at the right time. Air Force Staff Sgt. Oscar Trevino of the 190th Civil Engineering Squadron of the Kansas Air National Guard was with his unit in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as part of its two weeks of annual training.

“People said they felt the earthquake,” said Trevino. “I grew up in Southern California, and I didn’t feel anything. I just rolled over and went to bed. Sure enough, we found out the next day they had a massive earthquake over here.”

Trevino’s unit arrived here a week later.

“We waited for a week to get transportation,” he said. “Really, they needed us as soon as they could so we could get the camp going and get the other people housed.”

When Trevino first arrived in Haiti, service members were sleeping wherever space was available.

“The first week I slept on some lumber, because I didn’t want to sleep on the ground,” he said.

Building a tent city is a bit more involved than simply erecting a few tents. It means leveling ground and setting up living, shower and laundry areas.

“We initially brought in what is called a ’550 kit,’ which consists of tents and will house roughly 550 personnel,” said Trevino. “We were at the north end of the airport, and it was nothing but tall grass. And we came in with our heavy equipment and leveled the place. We put up tents and then our shower and laundry and built it up to as you see it today.”

These operations are all part of what a civil engineering squadron does.

“When we hit the ground in an expeditionary or contingency environment, our job is to set up a bare base,” said Air Force Lt. Col. Craig Bradford, commander of the 118th CES in Nashville, Tenn., and commander of the 24th Expeditionary CES in Port au Prince, Haiti. “So, if we have a water source and an airfield, we’ll come in and bring in all the material to build a tent city.”

But that still means hitting the ground running.

“We got here Jan. 29, and I haven’t had a day off since then,” said Bradford. “But we’ve been working hard to build a tent city for all the joint members in the task force.”

Members of Bradford’s squadron have been responsible for building more than a tent city. They worked on other projects around the airport and were directly involved with getting it re-opened to commercial traffic on Feb. 19.

“We built a diversionary road around the airport, otherwise traffic would be worse than what it already is,” said Bradford. “We also fixed a water leak that was just outside the major terminal that was going to be used for the commercial re-opening. Without our work, that terminal would not have opened at all.”

They also fixed the landing lights on the runway.

“The airfield lighting has gone down multiple times while we’ve been here,” said Bradford. “The first night it happened, the president of Haiti couldn’t even make it in. They had to divert his flight to another Caribbean island and our folks stayed up until that system was working and ready to go and he landed in the morning.”

The squadron’s ability to get the airfield lights back up and operational came about, in part, because of the civilian backgrounds of many of the squadron members.

“From the civil engineering standpoint, most of our folks are craftsmen on the outside,” said Bradford. “They have the abilities and they are working in the crafts. They’re carpenters, they’re electricians. Those are some of the unique qualities that the active duty force doesn’t have that we bring in our squadron.”

Because many buildings within the city have been destroyed or damaged by the earthquake, local residents have been wary of returning to their homes or entering various structures, said Bradford.

So, the squadron provided structural assessments of those properties “to give people the warm and fuzzy that they can go back and live where they lived before and that’s just as important as providing food and water,” said Bradford.

Providing these services is what makes the mission worthwhile. “Morale has been fantastic,” said Bradford. “This is a different sort of mission than going to Iraq or Afghanistan. If the shops can afford to lose a few folks during the week, then we go ahead and send them out on a mission to help an orphanage or work in the clinic or wherever we can.”

And that’s all part of the squadron’s mission.

“There was a humanitarian mission before the earthquake and there will be one long after,” said Bradford. “At most, we can put a dent in it. We’re here to help as much as we can.”

DVIDS
Story by Staff Sgt. Jon Soucy

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Haitians Go Back to Work
Story by Pfc. Kissta Feldner

Locals sit by their stands, filled with everything from rice, to cigarettes, to Revlon lipstick. Men carry enormous bags of fruits and vegetables on their heads, zigzagging through the maze that makes up the “orange market.” It was dubbed this by the U.S. soldiers in the area because of the massive amount of oranges that lay in piles by the side of the road, waiting to be peeled by Haitian women, stuffed into plastic bags, and sold to locals as they walk the streets.

The market is a bustling place, as are the areas of Port-au-Prince where vendors fill the streets, selling second-hand clothing, beautiful paintings and hand-carved wooden sculptures. Seven weeks after the earthquake that devastated Haiti’s capital, and life is ever so slowly returning to normal.

Many citizens have spent these few weeks cleaning and restoring their places of business, just wanting to get back to work and restore some normalcy to their daily routine after the traumatic events following the disaster.

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Medics from the Colombian army and air force are working side by side with U.S. Army, Air Force, and Navy doctors at an intermediate aftercare facility in Port-au-Prince. They are in here to assist with the ongoing humanitarian aid their country is providing to the people of Haiti Feb. 27. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Richard Andrade)

Wave of Colombian Medics Arrive in Haiti

Medics from the Colombian army and the air force are working side by side with U.S. Army, Air Force, and Navy doctors at an intermediate aftercare facility in Port-au-Prince.

The fact that the IAF is so close to the port makes it easy for the medics to transport patients to and from the USNS Comfort.

Columbian army Col. Pedro Segura arrived to assist with the ongoing humanitarian aid their country is providing to the people of Haiti Feb. 27. He is in charge of the Columbian contingency that is in Port-au-Prince working with U.S. forces.

“We will be in Haiti as long as it takes,” said Segura.

“We will do our best to collaborate with the U.S. forces to help the people of Haiti,” he said.

The Colombian Red Cross is also in Haiti, handing out water, first aid kits and hand crank radios at many food distribution points. The newly arrived medics are eager to be part of the Haitian mission.

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Red Cross vaccination program

As the vaccination posts are installed, the Red Cross gently reminds people that by vaccinating themselves and their children, they are fighting back against the extreme vulnerability into which the earthquake threw them.

“We have done everything we can to support our community,” says Noel Ylmond, leader of Villambetta’s displaced.

“Our priority has been to put children first from the very beginning. But it’s difficult for people to accept that when other priorities seem more pressing.

“These children are our hope, our future”.

Five vaccination teams have been operational since 8 February, vaccinating as many as 10,000 in a single day.

The vaccination consists of five different components: measles, diptheria, pertussis and tetanus, as well as albendezol – a deworming agent – and vitamin A.

“We still have 50,000 more people to vaccinate,” says Dr. Guilbert, a former professor at the university medical faculty and the nurses school, both destroyed in the earthquake.

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Floods come to Haiti two months early

Thirteen dead. Submerged houses. Fields and banana plantations waterlogged. Drowned livestock. Impassable roads. Fresh trauma for quake-displaced thousands. This is the plight of Les Cayes, a city on Haiti’s south coast, after an unseasonal deluge. And hurricane season is not far off.

Trucks loaded with 4,030 meals left Port-au-Prince on 2 March for emergency distribution in and around Les Cayes. Food has also been sent to Nippes region, north of Les Cayes, which has experienced bad flooding.

The UN World Food Programme, with local authorities and NGOs, plans to supply 10-day rations to affected populations, including some 3,000 people evacuated from their homes.

“The poor state of the sewers caused flooding in every [district] of the city,” said the regional president of the Haitian National Red Cross Society, Jean-Yves Placide.

“In some places the waters rose to ceiling level in people’s houses,” he said. “The situation will be really worrying if it continues to rain. The sun is out now, but the storm clouds come and go.”

“People are used to dealing with floods, just not this early,” one aid worker in Les Cayes told IRIN.

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Haitian refugee camp moved from swamp

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) yesterday “decongested” an improvised settlement on the outskirts of Leogane where 635 families who lost their homes in the 12 January earthquake had taken refuge.

It’s believed to be the first exercise of its kind in the international humanitarian response to the quake.

The Danish Red Cross relief Emergency Response Unit (ERU) has resettled 126 families in a new tented encampment on privately donated land alongside the old site.

The other 509 families were given a choice of a family-size tent or emergency shelter materials – timber, tarpaulins and toolkits – and are returning to the general areas from which they came.

It was all done on an entirely voluntary basis.

The number of sites identified by the UN as priorities for decongestion in Port-au-Prince has now risen to 21, but an acute shortage of land is making this difficult.

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The Military Sealift Command crane ship SS Cornhusker State docks peirside at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Cornhusker State is providing logistical support for Haiti as part of Operation Unified Response. (Photo by: Petty Officer 2nd Class Marie A. Montez)

More at the links

Port repairs

The main port of Haiti suffered severe damage during the earthquake. The largest North pier was destroyed, and the piles under the South pier crumbled leaving only part of it fit for use. With the assistance of the US Coast Guard, Navy and Army, who took over management of the port in support of the Autorite Portuaire Nationale, two crane ships were deployed which can load and unload cargo without facilities and then transport to shore on smaller landing crafts or lighters. The US Military has now completed the installation of two barges and placed them against the old wharf to serve as floating docks. These will be critical to operations following the redeployment of US assets. Interim repairs to the South pier are ahead of schedule and are expected to be finished as of the second week of April, after which full repairs will begin.

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RAF pilot aids U.S. Air Force Special Ops in Haiti

“I sat at home, on alert, hearing that aircraft one, two, three, then four, departed in front of me.

“By the time aircraft number four had departed, Haitian airspace was becoming dangerously congested with the vast number of aircraft trying to get to Port-au-Prince to provide assistance.

“The team of ten combat control team operators, using a picnic table as their air traffic control desk, were landing and departing aircraft as quickly as they could clear space on the ground; however, with a multitude of aircraft arriving unannounced, this was taking longer and longer.”

Whilst all of this was going on in Haiti the first aircraft returned to base to be swiftly turned around and reloaded so that it could make another return trip. Flt Lt Bailey continued:

“Finally, just prior to 1000 Central Standard Time, I alerted my crew and we headed into work. It took us about an hour from arriving in work to being sat in the aircraft with 18,000lbs [8,000kg] of medical supplies and equipment, the 20 personnel from the 1st Special Operations Wing’s specialist medical teams, and now I was ready to start the engines.

“The airspace was surprisingly quiet, the chaos during the day having abated, but most of the arrivals hadn’t informed the combat control team of their arrival, and in the dark of the night, amongst the mountains, the aircraft jostled and duelled for airspace whilst the controllers tried to ascertain where exactly each asset was, using only their observations and the charts they had with them. We sequenced in easily, allowing the fuel-critical arrivals in front of us.

“As we taxied in, the congestion was hard to believe. Each aircraft was parked with minimal wing-tip clearance, and in front of the parking line there was a throng of journalists, rescue teams and potential evacuees.

“Special Operations aircrew travel light and all the crew get involved in ground operations, assisting the offloading of the passengers and freight, reconfiguring of the airframe and the loading of the outbound freight.

“Typically, what we expected to extract had changed, and the whole crew found themselves assisting the loadmaster to set up the casualty evacuation stanchions at the rear of the aircraft so that we could take some injured people to hospitals back in the USA.

“Missions of this kind can be emotional; whilst my crew worked to adjust the aircraft configuration, I spoke with the surgeons about the passengers they hoped for us to move.

“Whilst there, my attention was drawn to one young boy who was almost inconsolable. The medics briefed me that he had lost one of his parents in the earthquake and asked if we could take him to Fort Lauderdale where arrangements would be made for him to be reunited with his father.

“I tried to console him with small-talk about flying and aircraft. I gave him my union patch and a chocolate bar and he seemed slightly less agitated, but the episode affected me emotionally and I found myself rather teary-eyed.”

It took the team approximately 30 minutes to convert the aircraft from a cargo plane to a medical support platform with stretcher stanchions, and so before they knew it, they were preparing to leave:

“As we took off I looked down into the deep black void where there should have been a well-lit town, and wondered how my seemingly inconsequential effort would actually improve the situation and lives of the people that must have been sheltering in the darkness,” Flt Lt Bailey said.

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Half of Haiti’s GDP wiped out

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St. Damien Hospital in Port-au-Prince receives equiv of 250 bed hospital

Feb. 23, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) donated a Federal Medical Station, valued at approximately $577,000, to St. Damien Hospital in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The pediatric hospital survived the 7.0 magnitude January 12 earthquake relatively unscathed, but was quickly overwhelmed by patients of all ages and unprepared for the numbers of adults requiring urgent care.

Father Rick Frechette, who runs St. Damien Hospital, said, “This gift from USAID gives us the chance to take the first few giant strides towards organizing a medical and surgical program for adults, especially those victims of the earthquake.”

The Federal Medical Station includes the components to stand up a 250-bed, acute-care facility, with an extensive medical cache to care for both inpatient and outpatient needs. This includes resuscitation kits for both adults and children and supplies to provide temporary stabilization for patients with respiratory failure. It also contains necessary items to stock a full pharmacy along with nursing, administrative, and housekeeping stations.

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Jamaican Defence Force leads relief mission near Leogane

Residents of an isolated community on the outskirts of the town of Leogane, Haiti, on Thursday were overjoyed at receiving medical attention and supplies of food from the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) contingent.

Led by the Jamaican Defence Force (JDF), the contingent carried out a medical outreach exercise in their neighbourhood as part of an on-going daily programme that began forty days ago.

The town of Leogane and its environs were earmarked by Haitian authorities for CARICOM’s health intervention following the 12 January earthquake.

The community which was targeted on Thursday was identified by the Mayor of Leogane and is about five miles from the town. Some 90 percent of Leogane itself has been devastated by the earthquake. Many persons made homeless by the earthquake have sought refuge on the outskirts of the town, fearful of the continuing tremors.

Haitian volunteers help unload supplies from a U.S. Army landing craft at a Haitian Coast Guard station in Carrefour, Haiti, Jan. 19. Photo by Cpl. Bobbie Curtis

Since the beginning of Operation Unified Response, one of the primary missions of the Navy and Marine Corps civil affairs teams attached to the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit and the Bataan Amphibious Ready Group is to unite the people and governments of earthquake menaced Haiti together with non-governmental organizations and international aid workers.

Children from Carrefour, Haiti, gather as local leaders conduct a humanitarian aid distribution in the city, Feb. 18. The Marines and sailors of the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit transferred primary responsibility for humanitarian aid distribution to the local and national Haitian government throughout the month of February. Photo by Cpl. Bobbie Curtis

Using a facility called a civil military operations center, Marines from 4th Civil Affairs Group, attached to the 22nd MEU and sailors from Maritime Civil Affairs Team 207, worked diligently to bring all these factors together to help organize a combined local and international effort to stabilize the Caribbean nation.

“The mission of the CMOC was to act as a bridge between the people and the local government,” said Staff Sgt. Jerrick D. Croston, a civil affairs team chief with 4th CAG and the 22nd MEU.

The CMOC is located in the town of Carrefour, just outside the nation’s capital city of Port-au-Prince, on Landing Zone Argonaut, a small encampment operated by the Marines and sailors of Battalion Landing Team, 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, 22nd MEU.

At the facility, civil affairs personnel met with town leaders and NGO officials to plan distributions and combined operations for the people of the local area.

“As local Haitians and organizations had needs, they brought them up to the CMOC,” Croston, a Philadelphia native, continued. “The major achievement of the CMOC was getting the mayors [of Carrefour] and the local government to work with the community leaders of Carrefour.”

Croston explained that many of the one million strong population of Carrefour have strong loyalty to a few key leaders in the community, who are mostly pastors from local religious organizations.

“After the earthquake people looked to them,” he added. “So we brought the local leaders and the local government together.”

Bringing the local leaders and their followers together with the Haitian government and several NGOs, the Marines and sailors of the CMOC streamlined the aid process for the people of Carrefour, transferring the primary role of providing humanitarian aid, from the U.S. Military to the Haitian local and national governments.

The civil affairs personnel conducted the operation in multiple-steps, beginning with an assessment phase where the Marines and sailors found out what problems were occurring in the area. Once problems were identified, the personnel worked with Haitian leaders and NGOs to solve the issues.

“At this point we have transitioned the role of the CMOC to the Haitian government and are back in the assessment phase,” Croston explained. “We are making sure the needs are being taken care of.”

Chief Petty Officer Charlotte Reijo, a team leader with Maritime Civil Affairs Team 207, meets with children from Carrefour, Haiti, Jan. 18. Sailors with MCAT-207 and Marine civil affairs specialists with the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit conduct operations from a Civil Military Operations Center in Carrefour, aimed at uniting the people of Haiti and the Haitian Government with non-governmental organizations to transfer primary humanitarian aid responsibilities in the area from the U.S. to the local government. Photo by Cpl. Bobbie Curtis

Captain Rebecca A. Popleiski, a civil affairs team leader with 4th CAG and the 22nd MEU, said the group of civil affairs specialists have come a long way in the month they have worked in Haiti.

The Marines began their operations in the towns of Petite Goave, Grand Goave and Leogone before moving to Carrefour. Those three areas had less involvement with community leaders and worked more specifically with NGOs, where as the Carrefour area of operations had a lot more grass-roots involvement, she explained.

“When we pull out of here, all the cities are going to be able to stand on their own,” Popleiski, a Washington D.C. native, explained. “Whether that’s local government or national government … they have stepped up and taken charge.”

With the aid of the Navy-Marine Corps civil affairs teams from the 22nd MEU and Bataan Amphibious Ready Group, the government of Haiti has taken primary responsibility for humanitarian aid distributions in the Carrefour area. Marines and sailors from the 22nd MEU have become a supplementary force as the Haitian Coast Guard and international NGOs take over.

DVIDS
Story by Cpl. Bobbie Curtis

Four children are dead after a landslide hit an elementary school in Cap-Haitien around noon, Feb. 15.

Members of the Nepalese police force working for the United Nations secured the scene at the Petite Ecole Francaise school while seven members from the Joint Forces Special Operations Component Command operating out of Cap-Haitien worked to pull the children out from under the rubble, according to one of the U.S. Special Operations service members who responded to the scene.

The team worked with members of a Haitian fire department and doctors from a non-governmental organization who also responded to the incident.

After recovering the first child, another landslide complicated efforts to reach the others, said the U.S. Special Operations member.

Four hours after responding to the scene, all of the bodies were recovered, and school administrators said all the children were accounted for. The four children were seated along the back wall of the school at the time of the incident.

The two-story school stood at the foot of a tall mountain in the northern city of Cap-Haitien. Both floors were crushed by the landslide, and a large boulder sat on all the rubble, according to U.S. service members.

The city has been experiencing heavy rain for the past two days. Members of U.S. Special Operations Civil Affairs teams continue to work with NGOs, U.N. representatives and the government of Haiti to assist citizens following the Jan. 12 earthquake.

DVIDS
Story by 2nd Lt. Victoria Brayton