Natural Disaster
Survivors Work Amid ‘Smell of Death’
January 16, 2010 - 9:01 AM | by: Orlando SalinasUPDATE: Port-au-Prince, Saturday 2:15 p.m. –
I saw Mike walking past me this morning at the airport in Port-au-Prince. He was on the other side of a jet way that separated us from hundreds of planes bringing medical supplies and food and water.
Mike is a member of a search and rescue team from south Florida. He told me his crews have been in Port-au-Prince for about two days now, and its been very busy.
They’ve had several great rescues, extricating Haitians buried underneath tons of concrete and dry mud. They’ve been working in what they call “alpha-bravo” shifts, taking turns working days and nights.
He made a couple of points. Number one- They still don’t have all the equipment they need to rescue people. He also said their jobs are made tougher when politicians fly in with military escorts, and back-up needed airspace for hours.
Another volunteer spokesman told me that there are too many politicians coming here. “Unless they’re rolling up their sleeves to help move supplies, it would best for all if they just stayed away.”
Number two- Mike told me that last night, Friday night, Hatian police provided security for his search and rescue teams as they searched in awful neighborhoods. But when someone started shooting at them, those police abandoned them. He said his crews had no choice but to leave before they were shot. They left that victim buried and still alive.
I asked him if he was angry about what happened, having to leave a victim behind still breathing? He said he was disappointed but that his crews have to focus on their own safety first. They’re no good to anyone if they’re dead.
Mike went back to his crew as they gathered more gear, I went back to my “live” location.
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UPDATE: Port-au-Prince, Saturday 10 a.m. –
I could hear her crying for about an hour, I thought she was just another baby wailing with another family, waiting to catch another last minute flight out of Haiti. I was wrong. After tossing back to the anchor after my last “live” report, I walked over with a snickers and a bag of peanuts. I thought maybe the little girl was hungry, maybe she needed some water?
I asked the two men with her if maybe she was thirsty, they said they would love some water, so I gave em two of the few remaining bottles we had, and we began to chat.
Turns out that one of the men is Pastor Mike Wilson with Brent Gambrell Ministeries out of Nashville Tenn. About a year ago, he and his wife, Heather, decided to adopt a Haitian baby.
They’d been doing missionary work in Haiti since 2003, and decided it was time to start walking the walk, so he told me they prayed and decided that 5-year-old Tia would become part of their family.
Then Tuesday’s quake happened, and Pastor Mike said the final approved paperwork from the Haitian ministry, was lost inside the ministry building that had collapsed.
Mike said he arrived in Port-au-Prince 36 hours before the “moto”- the quake, ready to take Tia back to the Tennessee mountains to start her new life. And here he was standing on the tarmac at the airport, with Tia and a friend as military jets rumbled by. I could barely hear what he was saying and had to yell at him several times to repeat what he’d just said.
Mike is hoping Haitian officials will grant him a humanitarian visa so he can take Tia home. He says has all the paperwork, except that final approval that was lost in the Haitian building. Haitian officials have told him that they won’t release Tia without that approval paper, and under normal circumstances, he said he would understand, but this is not normal.
Tia played with Wilson’s hair and face while we chatted, laughing and giggling- oblivious to the organized chaos around her.
Mike was hoping he would get on a plane with Tia, but that’s not happening today. So he took that water I gave him and hoisted Tia on his hip and began the trek back to what he says is a safe location. Mike said he’s not leaving Haiti without Tia. I wished him well, took a drink of warm water and got ready for my next Live shot.
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Port-au-Prince, Haiti – I was beat tired at the end of my shift Friday, but wanted to get into the city so I could better describe the reality of what’s going on.
We drove without any security, just two local Haitian men and myself. They spoke French, I didn’t, but we understood each other.
We jumped in their white SUV and drove to a neighborhood called Delma, where we found hundreds of people just walking. They looked dazed and desperate. Many of them were walking with empty hands, some carrying their belongings on their heads. Others were just sitting on the dirt roads — seemingly resigned and without hope.
We stopped when we saw several corpses piled on the sidewalk. The bodies were contorted; their mouths and eyes wide open, their last looks of horror captured forever for all the world to see. We took the horrific moment in, and then moved on.
Around the corner from these bodies, we found a few men working on a car. We jumped out to take pictures, and that’s when we saw a stream of people walking in and out from behind a plain looking white metal fence.
They gave us permission to come in and behind that gate we found what was left of he Iglesia Adventista, the 7th Day Adventist church. The church structure was badly damaged, and a man named Edgardo told me that since Tuesday’s earthquake, some 1,500 people had taken refuge behind the walls. Old and young, sick and traumatized. The inanimate bodies of two church members were placed gently in the church alleyway.
The people taking cover in the church showed me what was left of the structure, and women served rice and broth to a growing line of refugees who were piling in line.
These church members had smeared a strip of white mentholatum above their upper lip, to mask the smell of death, as they fed the people in line.
I asked a few more questions, jumped back into the SUV and headed to my hotel, where I showered and drove back to the airport to begin my Saturday morning shift.



























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