Shattered and forgotten, the port city of Jacmel waits
Former IRP Fellow Trenton Daniel just returned from covering Haiti for the Miami Herald. The below is one of a collection of stories from his trip
JACMEL, Haiti -- While the world's attention focused on earthquake-ravaged Port-au-Prince, a catastrophe of parallel magnitude has been unfolding in isolation on the country's southern coast, which the quake left littered with smashed buildings and extensive casualties.
Stranded and increasingly desperate residents of Jacmel, a quaint, historic Caribbean port city that suffered widespread damage and has been cut off from Port-au-Prince to the north, complain they have been forgotten. Four days after the quake struck Jacmel with equal force, they say they are still awaiting food, water, medical supplies and relief workers.
"We need so much help because there are a lot of people injured at the hospital, because there are a lot of bodies under the buildings, " said Phen Lafondse, 34, an electrician.
In scene after scene that eerily echoes the destruction seen the world over in Port-au-Prince, two-story buildings throughout downtown Jacmel -- a tourism center of some 40,000 people known for its art, French Colonial architecture and a spellbinding carnival -- have been reduced to concrete rubble. Residents walk through the streets with bandannas covering their faces because of the pervasive odor of decomposition that hangs over the city.
A vocational and auto-repair school, the Eunasmoh Institute, points to the severity of the local disaster: At least 100 students were crushed when the building collapsed in the quake, neighbors said. The trapped bodies of the victims could still be seen Friday, crushed arms and stiff legs protruding from the ruins.
But piles of dirt and fallen boulders block the narrow, winding road through the mountains from Port-au-Prince to Jacmel, and residents say help has yet to make it through. They wonder if the outside world is even aware of what happened here.
Miami Herald journalists who provided the first news accounts out of Jacmel traveled to the city Friday from Port-au-Prince partway by car, briefly hiked closer to the city on foot and entered on motorcycle taxis Jacmel is known for. Before dusk fell Friday, a government bulldozer had begun working to clear the road.
The epicenter of Tuesday's quake was located between Jacmel and Port-au-Prince, which are about 25 miles apart. The destruction in Jacmel may have initially escaped outside notice because of U.N. briefings that said damage from the quake appeared mostly restricted to Port-au-Prince.
RUNNING ON EMPTY
The desperation in Jacmel is perhaps nowhere more evident than at a makeshift medical treatment facility in the city center. Forced here after the adjacent hospital suffered severe damage, doctors and local relief workers scrambled to treat more than 100 victims.
"Tomorrow, the medicine, everything we have, is going to be gone, " said Jean Prophete Baptichon, a hospital administrator.
Doctors and relief workers say they've seen about 300 patients since the quake. Six people, including two children, died from injuries, they said.
As they wrap bandages on broken arms and legs, doctors resort to improvisation -- an ophthalmologist, for example, treats fractured bones and concocts splints with what he can.
And they worry that the hospital next door could collapse at any moment. Tremors from an aftershock rattled Jacmel for a few seconds Friday afternoon and sent people dashing away from buildings still standing.
They worry about the generator running out of fuel. And they worry about running empty on medical supplies, medicine and antibiotics.
There is a small relief presence in Jacmel -- many of them here since before the earthquake -- but it in no way matches the size of that in Port-au-Prince.
UNICEF workers are trying to coordinate with authorities in the neighboring Dominican Republic to helicopter in medicine and other supplies. They also may evacuate patients to the Dominican Republic.
'It's almost impossible to send people to Port-au-Prince, " said Tameka Donatien, a UNICEF coordinator from Cameroon. "It's a complete mess and we don't want to complicate things."
In fact, some injured residents of Port-au-Prince fled the city for treatment in Jacmel. Brothers Vladimir and Stanley Desir opted to bear hours of agony and took motorcycle taxis to Jacmel, where they have family, after their Port-au-Prince home came down on them. Two sisters died.
"The hospitals in Port-au-Prince couldn't help us, " said Vladimir, 24, a student.
HALTED PROGRESS
The city's near-destruction may prove especially troubling for Haiti's future because it was widely seen as one of the impoverished nation's few bright spots. Picturesque and long regarded as the safest city in Haiti, Jacmel had managed to keep a steady tourism trade going even as international visitors avoided the rest of the country -- enough to establish annual film and music festivals.
Just this month, the announcement that Choice Hotels International, owners of Comfort Inn, would be franchising its brand to two hotels in Jacmel was hailed as a sign of optimism and growing foreign investment interest.
But at least one of the city's leading small inns, The Florita Hotel, a New Orleans-style house built of brick in 1888, was heavily damaged, with half of the structure lying in a heap. It was one of several surviving period homes in Jacmel.
"It survived a lot of hurricanes, including some bad storms last year, but this earthquake did it in, " said owner Joe Cross by phone from New Jersey, where he was when the quake hit. "Jacmel was by far the nicest town in Haiti, and this was one of the sturdiest of the old houses -- but I don't know how charming it is now."
Five resident staff members have been sleeping outside the hotel for fear the rest would collapse, though neither workers nor some 15 guests suffered any serious injuries, Cross said.
"Jacmel is going to require a lot of time before it comes back to normal, " said Jean-Ruid Senatus, La Florita's manager, outside the shattered inn.
Stranded tourists and missionaries, meanwhile, were trying to map exit plans amid a growing and worrisome shortage of food, water and fuel.
At the 32-room Hotel Cap Lamandou -- one of the hotels slated to become a Comfort Inn -- some 30 church-group workers and a few Haitian tourists were holed up until they could find a safe way out.
Melanie Piard, a graphic designer from Montreal, came to Haiti to bury her mother and headed to Jacmel afterward for some respite from bereavement. But then the earthquake happened. Piard said she and her family learned of relief efforts under way in Port-au-Prince on the Internet.
"But what about us?" asked Piard, 30. "We're stuck here."
Daniel reported from Jacmel and Viglucci from Miami.
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