{"id":237392,"date":"2010-01-27T11:21:38","date_gmt":"2010-01-27T16:21:38","guid":{"rendered":"tag:blogs.rj.org,2010:\/rac\/\/2.2389"},"modified":"2010-01-27T11:31:08","modified_gmt":"2010-01-27T16:31:08","slug":"haitis-ground-zero-leogane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/237392","title":{"rendered":"Haiti’s Ground Zero – Leogane"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr. Adam Koons is a member of Temple Emanuel, Kensington, MD and Director of Relief & Humanitarian Assistance of International Relief & Development. Dr. Koons’ blog posts from Haiti were originally posted on the IRD blog. Visit Voices from the Field<\/a> to read earlier posts.<\/em><\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

Today we traveled outside of Port-au-Prince and into ground zero.
\nThe town, and district, of Leogane, with about 150,000 residents was
\nclosest to the earthquake’s epi-center. And it showed. Although,
\nestimates we had heard of 90% destruction were easily visible, the
\nmayor told us that 100% of the population were affected, since even
\nthose few whose homes were not destroyed were afraid to enter their
\nstill standing and damaged houses. The entire population was sleeping
\noutside, in makeshift shelters of plastic and cloth, in spontaneous
\nsettlements within and outside the town center. The police were sitting
\noutside of a damaged police station. When we found the mayor he was
\ncamped outside his broken house. Our visit was a “rapid assessment” to
\nunderstand the emergency needs, gaps, and the types of activities that
\nIRD would be best suited to provide. The mayor, in short, told us they
\nneed virtually everything because the population had lost virtually
\neverything.<\/p>\n

\"Leogane.jpg\"<\/span><\/p>\n

In one settlement we visited of around 230 families we met a group
\nof young men who immediately approached our vehicle when we arrived.
\nThey explained that they were the self-appointed, volunteer, security
\ncommittee, formed because even in such areas insecurity and theft are a
\nhuge problem and far beyond the capacity of the local police. Both the
\ndesperation of the population, which has caused mass looting and crime,
\nand the escape of an estimated 4000 prisoners from the
\nearthquake-damaged central prison, has made such community protection a
\nnecessity. It was a perfect opportunity for our IRD team to hand out a
\nnumber of the wonderful solar charged Sunlight Solar Bogo-Light
\nflashlights we were carrying just for such occasions. The flashlights
\nwill improve the group’s ability to patrol at night and thereby the
\nsettlement’s security. By working closely with the maker of the lights,
\nthat were donated, we ultimately hope to distribute thousands of them
\nsoon. <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Another settlement we visited completely filled the town football
\nstadium with tiny shelter built shoulder to shoulder. We met a few
\nyoung men who were making wooden frames for additional shelters. They
\ntold us they were salvaging the materials from the destroyed homes in
\ntown.  And amidst it all, we found children playing, as we often do …
\nand of course, begging us to take their picture, which, of course, we
\ndid. One young boy of about five had a home-made kite of salvaged
\nplastic and recovered string. His kite was aloft about 500!<\/p>\n

On the way back to Port-au-Prince, after passing a US Marine
\nhelicopter landing site and encampment (the helicopters had been
\npassing low and loud overhead all day), we got another sense of the
\nforce that leveled an entire town. We came upon a mile long crevasse
\nin the side of the highway that we estimated to be maybe 15 feet deep. \n<\/p>\n

We have chosen Leogane as one of the primary IRD disaster response
\nsites for our activities that we hope will include water repair,
\nsanitation and latrines, shelter, and perhaps agriculture.  So, we will
\nreturn soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. Adam Koons is a member of Temple Emanuel, Kensington, MD and Director of Relief & Humanitarian Assistance of International Relief & Development. Dr. Koons’ blog posts from Haiti were originally posted on the IRD blog. Visit Voices from the Field to read earlier posts. Today we traveled outside of Port-au-Prince and into ground zero. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4316,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-237392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4316"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237392\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}