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What situation did you expect to find when you landed in Haiti?
David Orr, WFP Public Information Officer: I’d covered a couple of earthquakes before – in the western Indian state of Gujarat in 2001 and in Pakistani Kashmir in 2005 – but nothing could have really prepared one for Haiti. I watched CNN live coverage of the quake aftermath but there’s something unreal about TV images of such a disaster: they are selective, giving one the impression that every building has come down, that nearly everyone is dead or grieving. I flew to Port-au-Prince on Friday, January 15 – three days after the quake. On that flight, I thought about the two previous missions I had served in Haiti last year – about the people I had known and the places where I’d stayed. I knew that the personal assistant of WFP’s Country Director had had a day off on the day of the quake and had been killed in her home.
Though the nearby UN peacekeepers’ headquarters had collapsed with terrible loss of life, WFP’s Country Office had emerged more or less intact. I had heard that the Montana Hotel where I had stayed last year had been damaged but did not realize it had totally collapsed, killing nearly everyone who’d been inside. I suspected that because construction in Haiti is often poor that a lot of houses had probably slid down the hillsides. But I reckoned that most large buildings would have survived. That wasn’t how it turned out to be. The destruction was almost random or so it appeared. Many apparently flimsy structures had withstood the shaking while a lot of major ones such as schools, supermarkets and hotels had just crumpled to the ground. The international airport where we landed that night looked fine and it was dark as we drove towards the UN Logistics Base where all the UN agencies had relocated following the quake. It took some time and many drives through the city for the scale of the destruction to become apparent.
Natasha Scripture, WFP Spokesperson: I was admittedly quite anxious before my departure to Haiti, as I expected to see a very upsetting, heart-wrenching and precarious situation. I’d been following the news closely from afar, so I’d already seen how bad things were. I knew that it would be quite chaotic down there, especially in the beginning; the impact of the earthquake was catastrophic, so many lives were destroyed and there was much damage to the country’s infrastructure. Haiti was already in dire straits before the earthquake – it’s the poorest country in the western hemisphere – so I expected to see a great deal of poverty and people living in unimaginable conditions. I also knew there’d be a large military presence in the country, and this was the first thing I noticed upon landing – I felt like I’d flown into some sort of war zone. It was definitely surreal.
What role did you play in the earthquake relief effort?
Orr: As on previous missions, I went to Haiti after the earthquake as a WFP Public Information Officer. The main task, at least in the initial period, was to process the enormous number of media requests that flooded in: requests for information, for interviews and for facilities such as accompanying WFP relief convoys into the field. PIOs were, first and foremost, spokesmen and spokeswomen, connecting WFP to the outside world and explaining what was going on. WFP’s amazing ICT (Information and Communications Technologies) team got an internet system up and running in a very short space of time so that it was possible to use computers for e-mailing. We always had one person at base on the computer and coordinating our public information operation while others were out in the field with the reporters. We hired a local Creole-speaking communications officer who could go on Haitian radio stations and give out important information about food distributions to the thousands of people who had been made homeless. The demand for information was massive at all levels and in all quarters. It was gratifying that there was such huge media interest in what we and the rest of the humanitarian world were doing in Haiti in those early weeks after the earthquake.
Scripture: I am a spokesperson for WFP, normally based in Rome. I was deployed to Haiti to reinforce our Public Information unit down there shortly after the earthquake. My main role was to share information with the media and to raise awareness of WFP’s work and the challenges we face. There was a lot of media interest in the beginning, so I was constantly responding to e-mail, telephone and in-person inquiries about our emergency operation and doing interviews for newspapers, radio stations and television outlets. I would often take journalists with us on food distributions so that they could understand some of the logistical challenges we faced in trying to reach some 2 million people.
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Orr: The challenges were huge. Never before had WFP or the humanitarian community been faced by a disaster of this magnitude in such a congested, urban setting. This meant that not just the infrastructure was severely damaged – it also meant that government and other institutions were terribly compromised in their ability to respond. Government officials and workers were as badly affected by the quake as were ordinary people. They lost their homes, their families and loved ones with the same impunity.
Every UN agency operating in the country was also affected. In addition to losing the assistant to the Country Director, WFP lost two local drivers and other employees had children and relatives injured, some seriously. Telecommunications were destroyed and disrupted, hindering efforts to respond and regroup. It took a while to establish where the greatest need was and for assistance to reach those in outlying areas. Rescuing those trapped in the rubble and tending to the injured were obviously the first priorities. People needed food, water shelter and many other things. Roads into the worst affected areas of the city were blocked by fallen masonry. Three of WFP’s four warehouses were damaged and so structurally unsound that they risked collapsing on laborers during the many after-shocks that followed. The port was knocked out of action so that, in the initial period, aid could only be brought in by air and by road from the Dominican Republic.
With so many countries and organizations rushing to help, it obviously took a while to fine-tune coordination and cooperation. The logistical challenges of moving aid around the city were immense, with up to a million homeless people encamped in some 300 or more makeshift settlements. There were some security concerns though these tended to be exaggerated and levels of criminality were actually lower in the weeks after the quake than beforehand. However, for the protection of the beneficiaries and so that distributions could be carried out in as orderly a fashion as possible, it was necessary to have security escorts with relief convoys and deliveries. Certain things could have been handled better but it was encouraging that so many aspects of the humanitarian response were well conducted.
Scripture: This has been a very complex, challenging operation for WFP on so many fronts. We had to build up our logistical capacity in Haiti from scratch, and work with many staff who had themselves been traumatized and affected by the earthquake. The disaster really hit the heart of the humanitarian community already on the ground in Haiti.
The damage to the country’s infrastructure was enormous and the entire supply chain network was simply not functioning in the beginning. Many areas were blocked by rubble which made getting aid to people in hard-to-access areas difficult, and traffic gridlocks were an ever increasing obstacle in Port-au-Prince - a densely-populated, urban environment. The security issue is an additional layer of concern, and can slow down relief efforts. However, things have improved dramatically since the beginning - we’ve now reached over 4 million people with food assistance in the capital and beyond.
Now that the situation in Haiti has calmed somewhat and WFP is looking towards more long-term solutions, what can Americans do to support WFP’s work in Haiti?
Orr: People can continue to raise awareness about the ongoing needs in Haiti and they can continue to support WFP's work through contributions to our emergency appeal. In the longer term, it’s important that people continue to keep Haiti on their radar. This is easier for Americans than for many other nations because of the geographical link with the Caribbean and the cultural links through the Haitian diaspora in the U.S. It would obviously make a huge difference if the economic links can be strengthened in the way that President Clinton – the UN special envoy to Haiti - has been envisaging for some time, i.e. through increased investment from the region in tourism as well as in other sectors.
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Scripture: The road to recovery will be long and difficult. As our operation moves beyond emergency food assistance to a more traditional WFP food assistance operation, we will continue to need funds. But in addition to financial support, I think the most important thing is for people to keep talking about it with friends, family and colleagues, to not let the world forget about the struggles of the Haitian people. Although the Haiti earthquake has dropped from headlines around the world, the disaster lives on for millions, and even when they recover in a year or two from now, they are still going to be living in one of the poorest countries in the world.
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