Day 2...Mayhem

We all woke up with a rumble. The 6.1 earthquake was the biggest shake since the initial quake. I guess I am to accustomed to earthquakes from growing up near San Francisco and living in Guatemala at the base of an active volcano because I laid there in bed watching everyone jump out. I was waiting for a large THUD before would run outside. After a few seconds it died down and I remained in bed. The owner of the house told me, "If the house shakes, Run! The house could have come down!"

We attended a "Cluster meeting" for the Water and Sanitation aid community. cars and people from everywhere showed up and buzzed around the crowded courtyard. The meeting was in french so we waited outside to be debriefed. We met up with Scott and the other team. We all needed to switch around vehicles which were here, there and everywhere. Not much was really accomplished today. Transportation is slow and most all communication is down. Local Cell phones dont really even work.

Many more structures fell this morning. Structures that were just hanging in the air finally colapsed. More people died.

We assessed one of the hospitals for structural damage and traveled around looking for places. All while I was travelling I kept seeing the signs, "Need food and water, please help" Scott and his team departed with Samaratains Purse for Leogan and we are meeting with Food for the Hungry tomorrow for more Hospital evaluations. There are many doctors and surgeons here that cannot work because the UN requires them to work in certified structures so we hope to get a few more Operating Rooms functional tomorrow and hand out small water filtration systems. The doctors that are working are overloaded with the most common surgury being amputations. In the local hospitals wher UN restrictions don't apply and were in use as we assessed, many of the people are dead and covered. As they are removed, additional people arrive.

There are only 5 water treatment plants in country so far and Scott has them for installation in Leogan. Water missions is trying to send up to 50 more units down. I am not sure exactly what we have in store for us but I have realized that although the people don't seem so chaotic, it really is Chaotic here.

During our devotions we focused our prayers on our strength of character to trust God in the delays and serve the best we can. Hopefully tomorrow will be more productive.