Remembering a Nightmare: the Quake in Haiti

Wednesday, January 12, 2011 04:29 AM

A building in Port-au-Prince destroyed last Jan12/10 photo courtesy James Adamson

Prince George, B.C. - It was one year ago today that UNBC grad James Adamson thought he was witnessing a rare event, as he travelled in a small motor boat to a coastal community on a tiny island just off Haiti...

Adamson and his colleagues watched a massive rockfall topple down a mountainside on the main island, but it wasn't until they arrived in the village on Ile de la Gonave two minutes later that they began to realize the serious nature of the event. He says the villagers were screaming in the aftermath of the earthquake and, although most of the community's little buildings collapsed, they were made of thatch and plaster, so injuries were minimal.

The same did not hold true in, and around, Port-au-Prince. The 7.0-magnitude quake that hit just before 5pm local time, with an epicentre 15-miles from the capital city, in the end, claimed 200,000 lives. The country continues to wallow one year later, much of it still covered in rubble.

James Adamson has been working in the country for the past several years. (photo at right courtesy of UNBC) The geoscientist is a hydro-geology expert who works for an international firm based in Chicago. He was sent there to help find water for a resort development in the country's northwest, but has developed water systems and rehabilitated wells throughout the country. Adamson returned to UNBC this past fall to be honoured as the University's 2010 Alum of the Year, and to share his recollection of events following the massive tremor last January 12th.

Unable to make it back to Port-au-Prince after the quake because of the rough waters, Adamson and his companions spent the night in a town on Ile de la Gonave. "And then the radio broadcasts eventually got going from Port-au-Prince and the broadcast was basically just listing dead people...notifying Haiti who was dead so that people could know the status of their loved ones and friends."

He says there were aftershocks and everyone was sleeping outside, "And every now and then a name would be read and you would just hear an echo of screams throughout the whole town and that went on all night long."

One of the men on his team learned that his two younger brothers and an aunt had been killed. "It was a very sobering night and it's a night I'll never forget in my life," says Adamson. "And it's a night I never want to re-live ever again, ever."

He says the horror continued the next day when the team arrived in Port-au-Prince. The UNBC grad says it was as though the earthquake had just occurred -- he thought at first the rescue effort was complete, but then realized nothing had yet begun. One of the first scenes he saw was a CNN reporter doing a live interview beside the presidential palace. "I was thinking when CNN was there that quick -- I wished they were running the relief effort."

The geoscientist says he and his colleagues quickly realized they could do little to help relief efforts from the capital city because it was immobilized by the devastation, so they went to a community further north to team up with an organization he had worked with on past projects. "There was no damage there and they had an entire office and a team, they had drilling equipment, water trucks, logistical supplies -- everything that was needed," he says. All the water networks were down, so they started sending water trucks into Port-au-Prince. Adamson says they also started communicating with the outside world to get involved in the logistics of getting medical teams into the country through the Dominican Republic, as Haiti's airport was destroyed.

Shortly thereafter, Adamson's group met with the national water ministry to offer up its services in continued relief efforts. He says the group was tasked with assessing water supply conditions in all of the areas impacted by the earthquake...they designed a few water systems, dispatched a team to start repairing broken wells, and restored water supply and a treatment system to a hospital in Port-au-Prince.

Adamson says while some of the other efforts aimed at securing water supply and ensuring sanitation became bogged down by language barriers and redundancies -- problems with trying to coordinate relief teams sent from around the world -- he says, for the most part, he feels the water ministry has emerged as a leader in Haiti, responding well to the quake. "In the past, they were more worried about payoffs and things like that, and now they're more worried about having a project that has results." (photo above shows typical water source (small springs or rivers) for much of the tiny island nation courtesy of James Adamson)

Adamson says a number of projects that have been embroiled in red tape for years have finally started rolling -- like paving the national highway, which has been on-hold for the past 25-years. So while Port-au-Prince and other affected areas are only just beginning to physically crawl out from under the debris, Adamson says he's feeling hopeful the international focus on Haiti will bring about government accountability that will lead to real change and progress in the tiny country.

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