When Professor Jean Claude lived in Florida, he experienced hurricanes. \u201cBut I never thought I would be in an earthquake,\u201d he says. He was proven wrong when, visiting his family in Haiti during the break between semesters, he was right there when the disaster hit.<\/p>\n
Two or three minutes before the earthquake, Professor Claude and a friend had left his sister\u2019s house in Carrefour, Haiti, which was just 15-20 miles from the epicenter. They were on the road, driving to town, when they felt the earth shake and the vehicle jolt from side to side. \u201cMy friend thought it was a shooting, but I knew it was an earthquake,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
In front of them, all they could see was a plume of dust coming from downtown Port-au-Prince. \u201cWe turned back and heard voices screaming, \u2018Where\u2019s my husband, where\u2019s my kids\u2019,\u201d he relates.<\/p>\n
Miraculously, all the houses on his sister\u2019s block were still standing, not one of them destroyed. \u201cMy whole family was safe, including my other sister, who is a nun. Her convent was flattened but she\u2019s okay. My father lives in the southern tip of the country, eight hours away, and that area wasn\u2019t affected.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the next three days, Claude stayed put, sleeping in the car. \u201cWe slept on the street because an aftershock could have demolished the house. We just used the house to shower,\u201d he relates. \u201cThe street was blocked to traffic to head off vigilantes in the neighborhood. You had to show that you had business on the block to enter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Claude was glad he was with his family during this time, but he couldn\u2019t get in touch with his wife to let her know he was okay. \u201cThe day after the earthquake, my brother-in-law who lives in DC got through on the phone and I asked him to let her know we had survived.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the third day, Claude left town to drive to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic where he would have a better chance to fly back home. It was then that he saw the full extent of the devastation. \u201cThere is no way to describe it except to say it was terrifying to see all the flattened land. The houses that were destroyed probably won\u2019t get rebuilt. Most of the owners constructed their houses one concrete block at a time and had no insurance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Big changes are in store for Claude\u2019s family in Haiti. One sister and her two children will join her husband in Maryland so the children will be able to go to school. His sister, who is a nun, will go south to attend to her (and Claude\u2019s) elderly father. The sister Claude was staying with during the earthquake works for the United Nations. She and her son will stay in their home.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Haitian people are resilient and the country can recover\u201d Claude notes. \u201cIt\u2019s unfortunate that the disaster happened when it did because progress was being made. Hopefully, the international community will not desert Haiti.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked which charity he recommended supporting, he says, without hesitation, \u201cThe Clinton Bush Haiti Fund (clintonbushhaitifund<\/strong>.org<\/strong>\/). Clinton understands the country and is very dedicated to the Haitian people. The money raised will be used appropriately.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When Professor Jean Claude lived in Florida, he experienced hurricanes. \u201cBut I never thought I would be in an earthquake,\u201d he says. He was proven wrong when, visiting his family in Haiti during the break between semesters, he was right there when the disaster hit. Two or three minutes before the earthquake, Professor Claude and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4725,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-281688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281688","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\/4725"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281688\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}