Haiti Earthquake response.
On Jan. 12, 2010, a devastating earthquake struck Haiti.
To date, the estimated death toll is approximately 200,000 victims.
This doesn’t include the 3 million folks who lost their homes, their jobs, everything they owned, buried in 20 seconds of the ground shaking.
There is No infrastructure. One of the hardest issues all the search teams faced in responding to such a disaster is that there was no infrastructure in place. What does this mean?
Over the years we’ve been able to respond to terrorist attacks, hurricanes, floods, fires, bombings, tornados, earthquakes, on behalf of either the fire department, military, police department, office of emergency management, homeland security, etc.
In Haiti there was no one to contact. There is no fire dept. The police dept was scattered and non-existent. There is no military there other then our own that was flown in a week after the disaster struck. The only group keeping some kind of order was the United Nations peacekeeping force.
Unfortunately their head quarters and command structure was destroyed in the earthquake, so that left NO ONE IN CHARGE. The Haitian president got the heck out of there and was no where to be seen for several days and when he did show his face on TV, he was in another country far away to lend his emotional support for his people. Thus there was and still isn’t any leadership there.
Our teams obtained a private request on behalf of some Americans missing and presumed trapped and missing in the rubble at Hotel Montana. Their families wanted us to respond to search for their family members. But when we asked them to pay our airfare, the families refused. So we couldn’t afford to respond.
The airlines refused to donate their flights. The military won’t fly any private teams in unless it’s a DOD request. And unless you’re a movie actor with lots of money, your airplane wasn’t landing in Haiti.
In order for us to respond we have to get approval from the local government and in this case there was none. Our flight was canceled, as were 970 other flights with search teams and medical supplies on board.
Throughout this whole ordeal everyone watched the news and saw the destruction, but what the media didn’t show you is that 75% of Haiti was never searched. The homes, condo’s, small apartments, stores, motels, where victims were trapped were never searched by anyone.
Countries from around the world responded. The US USAR teams that did respond did an outstanding job, but their main focus wasn’t for the Haitians. It was for the Americans trapped in Haiti. Yes they did save Haitian victims. But again their main response was to motels and other structures that had Americans known trapped in the rubble sites. That’s why the Haitians were so pissed off and rightfully so.
When the US military got there a week later, they did start making food and water drops, but again 75% of the victims never saw the water or food.
I was contacted repeatedly by the media as well as private families and consulted regarding their missing loved ones.
One of the other issues was body identification. In disasters such as this, it’s very common for the country to dig mass graves, then load bodies in dump trucks and dump them into these mass graves and cover them up. This, without identifying if they were American or Haitians and without taking digital photos of their remains for relatives to view later.
Here’s what wasn’t done and what I would have done differently based on 25 years of experience in disasters around the world.
If we could have been flown in after obtaining approval from the UN or US Military, we would have been deployed after the US USAR teams were done with their mission and have returned to the US. And or deployed immediately to send one team to photograph the mass grave burials for American and Haitian victims. Photographed the dead for their relatives to id later. A check of the field hospitals would also have been conducted. There were over 5,500 Americans reported missing in this event.
Then I would have brought in our search dogs to conduct two different types of searches. There are two ways we could have searched and found both the living and dead victims of the disaster.
First is to do what we did in the Northridge, Philippines, Turkey, Honduras, and other disasters is work the dogs in and around, through and under the rubble piles to detect live alerts and death alerts. There are no scent articles used here. There isn’t time to get them.
The search dog handler watches his / her dog and when the dog alerts on a live victim, the dog handler marks the location and calls for a rescue team to dig the victim(s) out. Again focusing on the living. I always mark the location of the dead as well so other teams coming in after us don’t waste time and resources.
Second and more time consuming would be to have obtained witness statements from survivors and employees of the Hotel Montana as well as the other locations where trapped victims would have been.
Had the families of the missing persons ship a single scent article to us by FED EX, so the search dogs can scent discriminate throughout the rubble for just one specific person’s scent at a time. This is a very effective but very time-consuming type of search.
With this type of searching we could tell in one day of searching at a specific site if the victim was in the rubble and if they were alive or dead. We did this in Honduras and in Turkey when we had the time and it was 100% effective.
The dogs were 100% accurate on the location of the victims.
We then move on to the next structure and let the rescue / recovery teams go in and rescue or recover their remains.
Instead the families are now using heavy construction and destruction equipment to tear down one structure at a time and search for voids to see if there are any survivors. The last survivor was pulled out after 15 days.
Could someone still be alive after 15 days? Sure if they were in an area where they could reach food and water. The super market would be one place where I would have had search dog teams continue for a total of two weeks before moving on.
Remember in the extreme heat, most search dogs can’t work longer then an hour before they get emotionally and physically exhausted. That’s why we conduct a lot of searches during the night or early morning.
When we’re crawling around under the rubble we’re protected somewhat by the heat. But then you have to deal with shifting structures that can collapse down and kill you and your search dog.
But in Haiti unless you had a security force with you to protect you, your search dog, and your rescue gear, you didn’t go out of base camp at night. Your gear would have been stolen and you would have been robbed of all the gear you had on you. Or worse, killed for it.
You also have to deal with the smell of bodies. In this heat, it’s horrible. You smell it, you taste it. It’s in your food and water. When you try to sleep it’s there as well. With that many dead you just can’t get away from it.
This causes depression among the search dogs. In major disasters like this, this is why we take frequent breaks and hide live rescuers in the rubble to let the search dog find a LIVE PERSON to cheer them up so we can go find more dead and living real victims.
In Turkey we have 100-degree heat and 30,000 dead, so I do know what it’s like to work this type of disaster.
Medical supplies, food and water that have been shipped there to Haiti are still sitting at the airport and on the loading docks. Why?
Because of the way it works there in Haiti, you have to pay a BRIBE. The Haitians call it a SHIPPING TAX in order for the supplies to get loaded and sent to where it’s needed. Even yesterday 02-02-2010, I heard doctors and nurses weren’t getting their supplies because they were refusing to pay the bribes.
What can be done from here? The US needs to either take the deployment more seriously and step up and help the UN and work a martial law type of deployment or get out of Haiti. Quit wasting money and resources.
There are bands of “BAD GUYS” robbing everyone of food, water, money, etc. and no one there to stop them.
The US military has the resources to go to these areas and stop the looting, robberies, murders, and continue to provide medical aid, food, shelter, and water to those who haven’t been able to receive any yet. Why aren’t our military folks being allowed to do this? Good question.
I’ve heard many complaints about the children. What’s going to happen to the children? Well folks, this is Haiti. No church groups, no military power, no one other then the Haitian government can step in and authorize the removal and transporting of children out of the country and set them up for adoption elsewhere.
When I responded to the Philippines we pulled two children out of the ruins. Their mother, father, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles were all dead. We gave the kids over to local missionaries but they were overwhelmed.
When I responded to Honduras, I brought over an experienced adoption counselor from the USA and she worked with the local officials to send survivors legally out of Honduras to the USA.
This is for the child’s safety. Child slavery is live and active around the world.
There are countries and people who will pay thousands of dollars to have a child taken out of the country so that these bad people can rape and kill them for their personal enjoyment.
This has been going on here in the USA and around the world for centuries.
The livestock and pets suffer as well. To date, since the initial quake, to my knowledge there has been no teams allowed in to inspect, rescue the dogs, cats, livestock that’s been hit by this disaster.
So there you have the facts as we know them. This comes from information from teams on the ground as well as the media sources.
What can you do?
1) If you made a donation of money, food, medical supplies. Demand to know if
it got to the victims, when, where, and how?
2) If you are traveling in a foreign country, carry a day pack with the basic
supplies. Food, water, pocket knife, first aid, toilet paper, id, etc. Thus
if you become a victim in a disaster, you have some basic survival supplies.
3) Make sure you’re family and friends know where you are. Then make sure they
must realize that if it’s in a foreign country like Haiti, the family may
have to hire a private experienced search dog team to come recover you.
4) The family can easily check the search dog teams experience and credentials
to ensure they are getting properly trained search dogs teams.
5) Get prepared today here at home, in your work place, your vehicles, your
schools. It can happen to us tomorrow.
Our prayers are with ALL of the victims of the Haiti disaster.
To date, I’ve donated over $20,000.00 in Services regarding this disaster.
Respectfully
Mr. Harry Oakes
Disaster SAR Coordinator
International K9 Search and Rescue Services.
www.k9sardog.com
