{"id":255934,"date":"2010-01-31T17:04:24","date_gmt":"2010-01-31T22:04:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com\/?p=10073"},"modified":"2010-01-31T17:04:24","modified_gmt":"2010-01-31T22:04:24","slug":"the-search-continues-at-hotel-montana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/255934","title":{"rendered":"The Search Continues at Hotel Montana"},"content":{"rendered":"

We had a brief trip to the Hotel Montana site today.\u00a0 Of all the recovery efforts I’ve seen so far, this is the most productive and well organized. There was a constant flow of trucks carrying out rubble that has been sifted through and then sent off to a landfill about six miles away.<\/p>\n

\"Dumptrucks<\/p>\n

Dumptrucks arrive to recieve rubble.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

As we walked up to the site, workers were pulling a body from the rubble, bringing the total number of recovered to 25.<\/p>\n

It was quiet, and machines were shut off. \u00a0Workers handled the remains with complete respect and dignity – this was someone’s child. Colonel Norberto Cintron said that he treats this site like a shrine to those who are now buried there. \u00a0These workers are emotionally attached to this mission – some have friends or family in there. \u00a0Major Chris Muller of the US Army told us that his friend and colleague was in there\u00a0 – Air Force Major Ken Booreland – he was seen a few minutes before the quake emailing in the building and has not been found.<\/p>\n

\"Fox<\/p>\n

Fox News photographer Jeff Burton at the Hotel Montana site<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Also on site was Bil Hawkins, the Incident Commander of the Hotel Montana Recovery Mission for the US Army Corp of Engineers. Hawkins is a tall military man and engineer from Denver. \u00a0Bil noticed the wedding band of a Columbian man that he was working with. \u00a0A day or so later, they were pulling a woman’s body out and he noticed that the man wasn’t in the area for the recovery. \u00a0When he looked close, he saw the woman had a matching wedding band to his. \u00a0A tough guy, Hawkins held back tears in recalling the moment when he told the man it was, in fact, his wife.<\/p>\n

Just two days ago, the body of a 4 year old Guatemalan boy was recovered, his father holding him in his arms as the building crumbled around them. \u00a0The mother and brother of that boy are alive. \u00a0Bil said to me, “I don’t know if you have a family, but I do – and no parent wants to see that.”<\/p>\n

Amidst the devastation around them, the men and women working this mission have a sense of duty to the families of those who have been entombed in what was once a 5 story symbol of Haiti’s potential. \u00a0The hotel was capable of holding 145 people. \u00a0The day the earthquake struck it was at 95% capacity. \u00a0It is believed that only 50% of the people were in the hotel at the time of the quake since many were at work during the daytime.<\/p>\n

A total of 17 survivors have been pulled from the rubble since Hotel collapsed, but officials say they expect no more survivors to be found.<\/p>\n

\"Power<\/p>\n

Power lines hang from trees at the site of the Hotel Montana<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

When a victim’s body is found the process of identification is a difficult one, a contractor carefully packages up the remains for identification under the watch of the US State Department in the US Embassy in Port au Prince’s makeshift mortuary. From there, they are sent to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware and then home to rest, while some families will come and receive their loved ones here in Haiti by means of commercial aircraft.<\/p>\n

Safety is the biggest concern, though the demolished structure is at rest, it can shift at any time, causing serious injuries to workers.
\nAs we head away from the hotel site back to Fox’s makeshift Haiti Bureau, a body partially covered with a tarp lay on the side of the road just yards from the gates of the Hotel Montana. \u00a0Thanks to the efforts of volunteers from all over the world, the family members of those lost in the Hotel Montana will eventually be able to lay their loved ones to rest, while many Haitians are left with only questions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We had a brief trip to the Hotel Montana site today.\u00a0 Of all the recovery efforts I’ve seen so far, this is the most productive and well organized. There was a constant flow of trucks carrying out rubble that has been sifted through and then sent off to a landfill about six miles away. Dumptrucks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4195,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-255934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255934","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\/4195"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255934\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}