Haiti First Person Account

[Below are two emails that Lance Durban sent to a group that I belong to. Lance was a college friend and we have stayed in touch over the years. He owns a business in Haiti and employees.The first note was the second we received after he saw the devastation. The one below was to let us know he and his family were all okay ]

Dear Fredonia-1970 Group, 

This group does not have its main purpose as fund-raising, though if it was, it would logically be fund-raising for the SUNY Fredonia College Foundation, our common link. Nevertheless, seeing the signs of devastation all around me here in Haiti, having fielded several requests about how best to contribute, and having read that Nick Kristof op-ed in today's New York Times about giving, here is one suggestion.

We truly do not know the scope of the problem for our 470+ Haitian employees, most of whom have not returned after last Tuesday's devastating earthquake, but as one of our group members who visited Haiti years ago correctly surmised, our workers could well be among the most affected. They were not the poorest of the poor, most were not living in wooden shacks which presumably would cause less of a problem than having a concrete roof fall on you. 

We have created a brief survey which our Human Resources Manager will be getting out to as many as possible to fill out... to assess house damage and the personal injury/death count. We have also established a Haiti Emergency Fund for friends and family contributions, 100% of which will be distributed to those employees most affected by the earthquake. A distribution formula is yet to be worked out, but it will be based on our best determination of need.

A number of our customers have already pledged help, and for any of you interested in contributing, please make checks payable to MANUTECH and marked Haiti Emergency Relief. Checks may be sent to our Miami address:
MANUTECH, INC.
8181 NW 91 Terrace, Bldg 10
Miami, FL 33166

We will promptly acknowledge all contributions, and provide all donors with a brief report when the fund is closed out... probably by the end of the first quarter.

It has been a difficult and heart-breaking time, several people we knew were among the victims when the U.N. headquarters collapsed, and my mini-bus is today "on loan" to one of our employees with a badly injured daughter... he is taking her to a good hospital in the provinces, which he hopes will be better able to provide quicker attention in his non-life-threatening, though serious, situation. Here in the capital, we know two surgeons, who are directors of a small hospital not far from our factory and they had performed 8 emergency amputations just yesterday.

We can only hope that 2010 ends better than it has started.

Lance Durban
Fredonia-1970 Yahoo! Group
SUNY Fredonia Class of 1970


Port-au-Prince, Jan 15, 2010
Dear Fredonians,

It's been 72+ hours since Tuesday afternoon's earthquake hit Port-au-Prince, and I thank you for your expressions of concern. All Durbans in Haiti are fine, and fortunately we have had virtually no property damage either. Here is a quick update if you haven't already overdosed on Haiti earthquake reports.

The quake hit about 4:45 PM Tuesday as I was leaving work, and at first I thought it was a flat tire. The car quickly started swaying violently from side to side however, and then I noticed telephone wires swinging back and forth like giant jump ropes and the telephone poles themselves waving wildly back and forth. Clearly, this was no ordinary flat tire.

I circled back to the plant and was pleased to see it still standing, although everything inside had been shaken up... water coolers tipped over, computers on the floor, ceiling panels in the offices all displaced, etc. It took 4 hours to drive home that night, up a road that was full of pedestrians, emergency vehicles, whole whole families sitting in the median, lot's of small children being carried by anxious parents. 

Still, it was only when driving down to work the next morning that the full scope of the disaster became apparent. We still have had only a few of our 470 employees return to work, so cannot confirm exactly what percentage will have lost their homes, but we will be doing a survey next week.

I got out to the Port-au-Prince airport today to check on cargo flights, and the place is abuzz with military and relief flights coming in from all over. There have been some 40 aftershocks now, some of them rather severe, and each one brings some degree of panic, although Nadia and I have been sleeping in the house every night. Fortunately it is a pretty solid house... we hope.

I have received a zillion e-mails from long lost friends and associates, and the outpouring of concern has been touching. Nadia's school is closed (large cracks making it structurally unsound, though it may be salvageable) so she volunteered at a makeshift hospital today, and saw plenty of serious injuries. The number of homeless people is pretty staggering, and we just wish that we could do more to help. 

That's it for the moment. Will write more soon on that Easter trip to London from April 1st to April 9th. We've bought our tickets and will definitely be going.... hope to have some of you join us.

Regards to all,
Lance Durban
Fredonia-1970 Yahoo! Group Moderator
SUNY at Fredonia, Class of 1970