Today there was a 6am earthquake in Hayti. Lucienne received a call immediately from Jeff, her nephew/brother. A police woman in Place St Pierre (the central park in Petionville) was saying that the USA immigration had new rules allowing family members to leave Haiti and go to Etats Unis. I knew this wasn't true but had to get up and search the net for immigration news. Turns out that existing adoption applications are being expedited.
The final toll there in Petionville is two brothers dead, Jean Baptiste and Patrick. Beatrice's two kids are ok. Later brother Marcel called for the first time. The Voila cell network is up. He is sleeping in the street down around Nazon. His three kids have been found. Nadia, Lucienne's eldest daughter (and Roxanne's older sister) is still missing.
20 January 2010
18 January 2010
The Port au Prince apocalypse
The destruction of Port au Prince has captured the imagination of the USA. For us, it is personal. Lucienne's family all live in poor districts of Port au Prince. When I first heard of an earthquake in Haiti I wasn't too concerned. There was a small earthquake when we lived in Kenscoff; I hardly noticed it. By California standards it was nothing worse than a truck driving by.
This 2010 quake was far stronger than the 1989 Santa Cruz quake (usually mistakenly called a San Francisco quake) which I rode out balancing on my bouncing house. The Haiti quake, in particular, lasted for 35 seconds, a very long time. The measure of ground movement puts it towards the strongest possible quakes. Port au Prince is one of the least prepared large cities imaginable for such destruction.
Lucienne tried to call Haiti for hours on tuesday night, to no avail. No lines available, and the cell phone networks were probably not functioning at all. Wednesday a call came in from Haiti, from Ernest Pinchinat, the ex-husband of Lulu's sister Beatrice. He came in immediately from Santo Domingo and reported that the hillside neighborhood where they lived had all collapsed into the ravine. He could not find anyone. This is a bidonville/favela on the side of a hill behind where the Hotel Kinam is at the top of Petionville. Lucienne calls it Morne Calvaire, but it is the foot of the Morne.
The next day, at 3am one of the young boys in Mama's household (a nephew/cousin or something) called Lucienne and spoke just long enough to say "call me back". Well, you cannot call back. So, word from someone, but mysteries continue. Great grief here. No word about Nadia, Roxanne's older sister, who lives with her Maren/Godmother in Tabarre (close by Aristides old palace and the new US embassy).
On Saturday a friend of Marcel, Luciennes brother, called and said that Nadia's Maren was confirmed dead and Nanou is missing. Mama and Sister Beatrice are alive but with injured feet or legs. Injured how badly? Unknown. Two brothers are dead, some of the other children are alive. The number living there fluctuates and who is family or not also varies.
I started getting active on Twitter and find it actually useful for something like this. Some folks with satellite internet and some source of electricity were able to get word out online, where telephones were not useful. People whom I know were tweeting from Jacmel and Port au Prince.
Today NPR has the first reports of Leogane. I knew it would be bad there, the center of the quake was in the mountains just above Leogane. They said that 90% of the houses are destroyed and there had been no help at all in six days.
This 2010 quake was far stronger than the 1989 Santa Cruz quake (usually mistakenly called a San Francisco quake) which I rode out balancing on my bouncing house. The Haiti quake, in particular, lasted for 35 seconds, a very long time. The measure of ground movement puts it towards the strongest possible quakes. Port au Prince is one of the least prepared large cities imaginable for such destruction.
Lucienne tried to call Haiti for hours on tuesday night, to no avail. No lines available, and the cell phone networks were probably not functioning at all. Wednesday a call came in from Haiti, from Ernest Pinchinat, the ex-husband of Lulu's sister Beatrice. He came in immediately from Santo Domingo and reported that the hillside neighborhood where they lived had all collapsed into the ravine. He could not find anyone. This is a bidonville/favela on the side of a hill behind where the Hotel Kinam is at the top of Petionville. Lucienne calls it Morne Calvaire, but it is the foot of the Morne.
The next day, at 3am one of the young boys in Mama's household (a nephew/cousin or something) called Lucienne and spoke just long enough to say "call me back". Well, you cannot call back. So, word from someone, but mysteries continue. Great grief here. No word about Nadia, Roxanne's older sister, who lives with her Maren/Godmother in Tabarre (close by Aristides old palace and the new US embassy).
On Saturday a friend of Marcel, Luciennes brother, called and said that Nadia's Maren was confirmed dead and Nanou is missing. Mama and Sister Beatrice are alive but with injured feet or legs. Injured how badly? Unknown. Two brothers are dead, some of the other children are alive. The number living there fluctuates and who is family or not also varies.
I started getting active on Twitter and find it actually useful for something like this. Some folks with satellite internet and some source of electricity were able to get word out online, where telephones were not useful. People whom I know were tweeting from Jacmel and Port au Prince.
Today NPR has the first reports of Leogane. I knew it would be bad there, the center of the quake was in the mountains just above Leogane. They said that 90% of the houses are destroyed and there had been no help at all in six days.
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