After the initial shock of a 7.0 magnitude earthquake devastated the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince and the proceeding days of aftershocks, the entire city has nearly been reduced to rubble. Yet some buildings still stand.
That's where Andre Filiatrault, a UB Professor of Civil, Structural & Environmental Engineering and director of Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering Research, and a team of 10 engineers and architects have offered their expertise.
The MCEER team consists of French speaking engineers to better understand the French-based Haitian Creole language of the people and government they are trying to help.
While in Haiti, the team will be hard at work evaluating which buildings are safe for the hundreds of thousands of residents that were left homeless to start reusing. Filiatrault said in an interview with the UB Reporter that close to 100 percent of the Port-au-Prince population is sleeping in tents or outdoors.
The team has been selected by the United Nations as its interim lead coordinating team and will be assessing infrastructure and many different buildings, including hospitals and private buildings, according the article.
'In Haiti, the damage the country has sustained to its infrastructure and to its population is so extensive that it is largely up to the international community to conduct these inspections,' Filiatrault said. 'Once we have assessed the safety of the most critical structures, then those facilities that are deemed safe can be fully utilized for relief efforts – in particular hospitals, food storage and distribution centers and ports.'
Filiatrault said the lack of understanding of earthquakes in the country has added to the hardship of the disaster, adding that it is 'disturbing' to see hospitals not being utilized due to fear of aftershocks, although some of the buildings are fine. People are being treated outdoors and under tents, suffering from not only their wounds, but the Caribbean heat as well.
Despite the devastated condition of the city, Filiatault and the team have been making progress and have kept busy with requests from the UN, local schools and hospitals.
'Things are going well for our team despite difficult conditions we encounter daily in the field,' Filiatrault said in the article. 'This work is pretty intense and the environment is rough, both physically and psychologically. Many cases are difficult, but at the same time inspiring.'
The team consists of engineers from institutions and businesses around the country and has paired with Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group, a national non-profit organization that helps with renewable energy, sanitation and clean water.
Members of the AIDG-MCEER team include Reginald DesRoches from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Wassim Ghannoum of the University at Texas, Caroline Zennie of Parsons Corporation, Scott Dehollander of MRB Group and Eddy Germain of the New Jersey Department of Transportation.
Established in 1986, MCEER is headquartered at UB and is 'dedicated to the discovery and development of new knowledge, tools and technologies that equip communities to become more disaster resilient in the face of earthquakes and other extreme events,' according to its Web site.
MCEER has assisted in many disasters since its creation, including relief and assessment efforts in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Members also traveled to Asia in 2004 after a tsunami off the Indian Ocean killed nearly 230,000 people.
Filiatrault and the team will return on Friday.
E-mail: news@ubspectrum.com
Photo: Breadchastick / Wikimedia Commons
