School Collapse in Haiti - My Perspective

This is what I saw from my perspective.

It started right after finishing up our first class of Creole lessons which lasted two hours. On our way home, we ran into Patti who asked if I was going with the guys. I asked her what was going on and she said that a school roof collapsed and that they were going to help. They were down gathering things to bring and were about to head out. Carter wanted to go with as he usually does, but I told him that it may not be a good idea this time – he complained as usual because he likes to go with me everywhere.

On the way down sitting in the bed of the Ford Ranger, I found out more information: the school was not one of ours, the building was more than two stories tall, the event made the front page of Yahoo!, it occurred around 9AM, etc… As we got close and saw many UN and Haitian police vehicles around as well as a huge crowd of people, I started thinking to myself “What are the seven of us going to do to help? We’ll probably end up in the way of the rescue efforts.”

We drove past various police barricades looking for a place to park. At one point there was a sudden but short burst of a crowd of people heading our direction. We never found out what that was about, but it was concerning to me at least. We parked the truck about ten blocks away from the school, gathered our tools, and started walking. Part way there, there was a little crowd and some policemen were beating a few people off with sticks. We went through a few areas where police were not letting people through. A few times the crowd was so thick that we were nearly pushing and shoving our way through. At times I found myself taking positions that left me either a way out or a way through using either my body or the tools I was carrying to help me. On the way there we ran across the president of Haiti and the Chief of Police who made an appearance.

The construction of some, if not most, buildings in Haiti is of very poor quality. A general lack of money means that some people cut costs by using less mortar between cement blocks. Materials used for construction can often be of bad quality like the cement blocks themselves or a bad ratio in the cement makes it less able to hold together. This is very commonplace here. Often the foundations are insufficient for the weight of the above floors and the floors above are about a foot bigger than the floors below (almost looking like an upside-down pyramid). There do not seem to be any codes to follow or anyone following up on construction.

For those who don’t want to read about the more vivid details, I’ll use “**” at the beginning of paragraphs that contain things you MAY not want to read and “****” for things that you WILL not want to read. I am including these details to show the reality and the magnitude of the situation.

**Our first glimpse of the school was from the street side where at the entrance. We stepped past the police tape and into the entry way. There I saw someone’s body under a sheet with her foot sticking out. We set up our tools against the interior wall and awaited further instruction. As we waited I noticed two other bodies laying there with us in the small entryway of about 12 feet square. Moments later, three people came in with body bags and uncovered the bodies right in front of us. Before they removed the sheets, they gave us a glance as if they were checking to see if we knew what was about to happen. They laid down the body bags and lifted up the bodies into the bag and zipped them all up. The last one took a little longer because the person’s arm was not conveniently situated.

Shortly thereafter, we were directed to another area. I was thinking that we were going back, but instead we were brought around the back of the school where it collapsed. We made our way past a number of people and then set our tools down to the side of the building.

That’s about all the detail I can remember as far as what we did when we first got there. From that point we partially worked together and partially apart. Pastor Rob, Kyrk and Chris were up on the front lines of where we were clearing the debris and looking for people. They were helping the main engineer-like person determine what steel support to cut to get various pieces off to lighten the load on the floors below – the floors that we were standing over. That guy was trying to make sure that people were not hitting the concrete or making strikes downward as it could cause more collapse. He also instructed us to cut the rebar without using any tool that would cause vibration. That limited the cutting to only torches. There were times that the floor beneath us would shake quite a bit. Some parts of the floor that we were standing on were no longer level but rather caved in middle.

I was back just off the front line as a worker ant lifting the big chunks of concrete, dumping the buckets of concrete that were collected, and shoveling debris over the edge. It was good to work with the people that were helping. There were a couple guys that I recall teaming up with quite a bit – that’s more of the good stuff. It was an amazing scene to have the mountain/hill on the other side of the valley be filled with the typical downtown Port-au-Prince, Haiti homes with people EVERYWHERE a person could be - up step, on roofs and just all over.

****I can’t tell you how many shoes I shoveled over the edge - each shoe belonged to someone. We ran across a few backpacks and a few school books. There were bodies in various places and in various conditions. At times we would be lifting, cutting, and moving concrete right over a dead child. To move various pieces, we had to move parts of the bodies. When a body was uncovered, it would be put on a stretcher, covered up, and taken away. The worst that I saw consisted of parts of a person’s face/jaw that we had pick up and find a plastic bag to put it in – the body just left on a stretcher. Another body that we moved had internal organs out and exposed. Another girl that we exposed from the concrete had her cell phone stuck in her hands as we put her onto the stretcher. These are the pictures that keep flashing through my mind.

The Lord had us in this place and at this time for a reason. As we worked, one of the biggest surprises to me was that how we, the people of the Baptist Haiti Mission, could be on the front lines. Besides the main engineer guy, there didn’t appear to be anyone else from any major area like a policeman, firefighter, or UN. There appeared to be little help from the UN folks (I am not saying that they didn’t do anything at all, just that there were few with us at the time). At one time, this guy with the UN from Nepal was helping to break concrete – he looked built for the task because he was short, strong, and stocky. I know, as the news reports, that there were Red Cross people there and USAID folks as well, but it was not obvious who they were on that first day (Friday). There were some people working on the lower floors underneath where we clearing debris – they could have been from the bigger name groups. I saw pictures of people working before we got there and pictures after we got there that contain people from various groups, but while we were there, there didn’t seem to be many people from those groups. There was little crowd control at the site so we had just about anyone who wanted to coming up and working. Some people seemed to be there just to take pictures. I see today in the new story pictures that there is much better crowd control and it seems that only people from USAID or similar places are being allowed at the site.

As we were digging out, I looked to the broken concrete above that was suspended by the steel rebar. At times I pictured that concrete coming down and had occasionally planned an exit route should that happen. I also pictured myself being caught up in the concrete – hoping that it would not happen.

I noticed that where Kyrk was they found a boy alive. The main engineer guy was planning to clear debris across and get to the boy because of the way the concrete above was situated. We operated under that plan for about 15 minutes. As you might expect, there were some differences in how people thought we should go about getting to the boy, yet everyone handled it well. After that 15 minutes, the boy managed to somehow free himself a little bit – enough to get a drink of water that we passed to him. I think that this, along with the slow and dangerous progress of removing the concrete above, made the engineer change his mind. Kyrk was down in there giving the boy a drink and holding a flashlight for him. After clearing some debris, the boy was freed and carried out (his picture can be seen in the slide show of the Yahoo! news story). People clapped and cheered when they pulled him out. It’s amazing how much energy that can give a person. People seemed to work harder after the boy got out.

I was mentally prepared to work later than we did. I was also still physically OK. They had occasionally passed water up to the workers, so we were hydrated. I am not sure who or what caused the decision for us to leave, but shortly after we got the boy out we left. Part of me wanted to stay. We managed to walk back with most of our tools. One of our electric cords was left because it was running one of the large lights.

When I got back home, it was nice to see my family. It was sad to think that not everyone would be going home with their children that night. Through all of this, I hope that people are pointed to Our Lord Jesus Christ as the sovereign ruler of the universe and all that happens in this universe. His reasons are not always known, His methods are not always understood, but His ultimate purpose is made known in the Bible – that He be glorified. We are all sinners, but by His grace, by His Son dying on the cross, we can be saved into eternal life with Him if we believe and follow him with all of our heart. We need to be ready to meet our Maker at every hour of the day. We need to be seeking Him at all times whether we are in a poorly constructed church school in Haiti or in a super-structure like the World Trade Center because one never knows when the Lord will come calling our name.