Your Interview

Where do you and other reporters stay and eat in Haiti? What problems do you have in finding accommodation and other services you need?

Paul Hunter: Hi Kathy. We stayed at a private residence in the hills outside the city centre. It was the home of our ‘fixer’ Laurence. (A fixer is a local person hired to take us around town, translate, and generally help on logistics during any foreign assignment). At Laurence’s house — which thankfully was not damaged by the quake — the ten of us slept in tents on the lawn, in hammocks, in Laurence’s living room, in her extra bedroom, on her patio, and on ground sheets in the open air.

The electricity would come and go and we had cold rainwater for showers, with a long lineup each morning. Otherwise it was more than we could have hoped for.

For food, I brought a whack of power bars (and ate all of them.) When we were in Santo Domingo before driving to Port-au-Prince we stocked up on dry goods. We’ve now all had our fill of canned ravioli, tuna and peach halves in heavy syrup.

We hooked up with Laurence thanks to CBC Radio’s Steve Puddicombe. He was with us, had been to Haiti several times before and worked with her often. She’s a gem and she survived every test of patience with which she was confronted.

Accommodation was a real problem for journalists. Those not as lucky as we, could only cross their fingers. Rare was the hotel still open, let alone with vacancies.

Susan Ormiston: The toughest part is right at the beginning. You don’t know what exactly you’re getting into. What is the food shortage — is it safe — where might you sleep? You can’t answer most of those questions until you get on the ground.

All over the world, though there is a network of people we call “fixers” — residents who can help us find what we need.

CBC Radio has an excellent fixer in Port au Prince and she opened her home to us.

Essential to us, though, is the technical capacity to get our visuals out to Canada. We travel with what’s called a ‘fly away’ — a small satellite setup, packed into several cases. When we got to Haiti, we were able to set that up and transmit video and audio. We also use portable satellite computers which can lock on a satellite from anywhere and get us a phone line. It’s not fool proof but it usually works.

All the reporters are to be commended for their excellent coverage of this tragedy. I am curious as to where you and your camera crews, etc. are being housed. Are you in tents or motor coaches or what? With the report of the aftershocks, are you in any danger? Also, where are all the medical and rescue crews billetted? Seeing coverage of their efforts is inspiring but I am wondering as to what kind of rest and nutrition they are receiving to keep them going.
Thanks

Paul Hunter: We felt a LOT of aftershocks, Sandra. Among them were those measuring 4.0, 5.3 and 6.1 magnitude. You sort of got used to them, but the 6.1 was super scary. When it struck, I feared our house might collapse and debated jumping out the window — thankfully it did not collapse. And during the 5.3, a bunch of us ran out onto the lawn for safety until it ended — and again, the house survived.

I don’t know where aid and rescue workers stayed. But I imagine they came equipped with tents and supplies and set up ad hoc camps.

Several years ago while covering a giant forest fire in Montana I saw first hand why they call in the military in such situations. Soldiers are skilled at organizing impromptu ‘cities’ with such essentials as toilets, showers, potable water, sleeping facilities and so on. I can only presume that the aid and rescue workers were equipped and are trained likewise.

Susan Ormiston: The aftershocks were real, frequent and of course dangerous if they were severe enough to rattle buildings. You couldn’t predict what might happen. Often they came at night, a tremor or a stronger aftershock, which for everyone, mostly Haitians was very frightening.

Even Haitians who had homes slept in parks or the streets. The slightest earth movement, understandably, terrified them. The tremors didn’t last long. One of the most serious, I slept right through — one advantage of exhaustion. Another in the morning sent me running for the street. We were mindful always while taking video not to stand too long under a precarious wall or building.

As for medical and rescue crews, they all find their own arrangements billeting with locals, in hotels or camped at the airport (a safe location.) Rest really doesn’t happen much in a situation like this; you grab enough sleep to keep going. Water is the most critical element. Dehydration can incapacitate you and you may not feel it creeping up on you.

How many journalists from other countries are there in Haiti? Do you see them at all? Are you constantly telling people that you're just a journalist not a trained rescue person?

Paul Hunter: Wow, these are all good questions! Personally, I chatted with a TV crew from London’s Sky News. As well, I saw a CBS crew, a CNN crew, a Japanese crew and, I think, a Spanish one.

One day at the Olofson Hotel (a classic old French colonial place undamaged by the quake) we saw a raggedy-looking, straight-from-central-casting bunch of reporters and photographers (think Dennis Hopper in Apocalypse Now) who had come from all over. There’s no doubt it was a big story worldwide.

But unlike many major news stories, geographically speaking this one was not concentrated in any one single area. You could go anywhere in this huge city and find a story that needed to be told. Therefore, also unlike many major news stories, you generally didn’t actually see a lot of other reporters, since we were all spread out all over the place.

I was never confused for a rescue person, but once I did have someone mistake me for a doctor (when I was at a medical clinic, sitting down to take a break from gathering news elements.) Perhaps it was because of the medical mask we’d often wear to protect from the stench and dust.

I will add that everywhere we went, we were welcomed by Haitians. I think everyone there knew that the stories we were telling could only help speed aid to their country. Even while trying to pass through crowds of people so we could take pictures, we were met with polite assistance.

Susan Ormiston: The day after the quake most of the world’s media were mobilizing to get into Haiti. It was very difficult. We flew into neighboring Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic and tried to figure out ways to get into Haiti. Our team got there by three different routes: two by land, one by air with the military.

It did seem the entire world’s media had descended on Haiti by the Friday. You would see them, but not as much as you’d expect, as there was literally so much ground to cover. I wasn’t confused for a rescuer — not with cameraman Andy Hincenbergs and a large video camera on his shoulder.

What also struck me is how cooperative and open were the Haitians to let us record their horror. I never once felt threatened or in danger.

Is there a control unit to direct recue teams and medical teams? How do the Canadian team decided which part of the country should they go to help? On the news seems like getting help over there is totally by luck.

Paul Hunter: Cecilia, you hit it bang on. The single biggest problem regarded getting aid where it was needed, certainly in the days immediately after the quake.

As an example, I’d direct people to the story I did on a medical clinic that had run out of supplies in the face of hundreds of seriously injured people. The clinic was mere metres from the airport, at which sat piles and piles of aid that had been flown in, but was paralyzed by the absence of enough organization to get it to places such as the clinic. Maddening, isn’t it?

The sorry side effect of that may be that people will think, "Hey if my donations don’t get where they’re needed, why bother donating?" (Remember the tsunami?)

I can now report that a better organization system is in place to see that aid is more appropriately distributed.

Perhaps it’s excusable because the disaster was so massive, sudden and unexpected. But then again doesn’t that describe all natural disasters?

Susan Ormiston: Not luck. There are assessments and plans, but they took time to put into place. In the meantime, some Haitians attracted attention in visceral ways. I was stopped by a body barricade where corpses had been piled up, completely snarling traffic. The nearby neighborhoods had been devastated and no one was coming to help clear away the dead.

On other occasions we saw hand lettered signs saying “We need Help,” in Creole or French, at the entrance to some streets.

Canada decided some time ago its main contribution would be in Leogan and Jacmel, outside of the capital. A coordinated effort in one geographic region seemed like a good approach.

First - kudos to CBC reporter efforts on the ground. It cannot be easy in many different ways. My question - given the fairly substantial Canadian Forces effort in Jacmel, why is it we have seen virtually no coverage from that city? Is it just too difficult logistically to get there? Some other reason? Seems to me Canadians would like to know and see more about our CF effort on the ground, in addition to the fine reporting coming from Port au Prince. Thank you and good luck - stay safe.

Paul Hunter: Susan made the (long) journey to Jacmel, so I’m going to let her handle this one.

Susan Ormiston: You’re right in one sense, Jacmel was cut off by road for more than a week after the earthquake. We tried to get there four days after the earthquake. We turned back.

The Canadian military first helicoptered in, with three media, about a week after the quake. David Common reported that story. But access was severely limited. And we did not have access to airlifts independently. I finally did get to Jacmel last Saturday. A two hour trip normally took about 3.5 hours in one direction. You could see where the mountain had fallen on the road and where two- story boulders had blocked the only way in by car.

As of Saturday last, the CF had set up a small medical clinic for lesser injuries on the beach in Jacmel. The HMS Halifax was anchored off the port. At the airport supplies were being flown in regularly, although not a great deal had reached the displaced camps yet.

That was the job of the World Food Program. The military was guarding the entrance to that camp and starting the job of clearing Jacmel. That city was not as hard hit as Port-au-Prince, so while the need is acute, it was by no means on the scale of Port-au-Prince.

Nevertheless, I too was very frustrated in my early attempts to get there.

I'm struck by the number of concrete houses and slabs of concrete in the photos and videos we see. Are most buildings made from concrete? Would there have been more survivors and less severe injuries if they were made of other materials?

Paul Hunter: Yes and yes. And not only were they made of concrete but often they were made as cheaply as possible. By that I mean without so-called rebar (reinforcement bars — the heavy iron support bars you see embedded into concrete as it’s poured so it can be strengthened.) Rebar would add to the cost.

A lot of the structures that tumbled when the quake struck were simply cinder blocks held together by cement. Astonishing. Strikes me that even Lego buildings your kids might make would hold together better than that.

We stayed at a place with a roof made of wood, so we felt safe. During the aftershocks you’d hear the place creak as it wobbled, but it wouldn’t fall down.

One side effect of the devastation, is that even people whose homes did not crumble are now afraid to sleep in them. So each evening, as sunset approaches, you’ll see neighbourhoods putting up roadblocks to prevent cars from driving on the streets at night — because people are sleeping out on those streets, afraid to go to bed in their own concrete homes.

Susan Ormiston: Good observation. My understanding is that some of the building was to ward against hurricanes, thus the cement slabs. Other building was completely ad hoc, with no code, and no engineering plan.

I can’t tell you how shocking it was to see multi-story buildings collapsed in on themselves like wedding cake layers crumbling. As Paul said, many Haitians are still sleeping in the streets, even if their homes weren’t demolished. They’re petrified of aftershocks and they say they don’t want cement slabs for roofs anymore, ever.

Thank you for your first class reporting and dedication, allowing us to experience in a small way, the un-imaginable enormity of the destruction, the loss of lives and the un-selfish effort of humans helping humans to survive.
The heart wrenching stories and the scale of the destruction you have shared, must effect your mind in some way.

How do you cope mentally, and do you receive professional help in these situations?

Paul Hunter: Thanks for asking Ole. We do get help, if we want it. CBC has an Employee Assistance Program that is meant to help staff cope with any stress they encounter, whether it be in places like Haiti or at home, and it will be available to us.

My own way of coping is to focus on the logistics of what I need to do to get my story to Canadians. But in Haiti, what we saw was often simply too much to set aside emotionally. I often felt on the verge of tears.

Doctors don’t really know what causes some people to get Post Traumatic Stress Disorder but not others. They do know that roughly one in four people who experience or witness extreme trauma (ie. soldiers in Afghanistan) are at risk for it. What they don’t know is why one person will suffer PTSD and another who experienced or witnessed exactly the same thing, will not. One in four, they say. I think I’m one of the other three. Thank goodness.

Susan Ormiston: I pondered this question a lot. In one way the earthquake was the most shining example of the triumph of the human spirit. Haiti, which has been violent and crime ridden, was not like that in the aftermath. People were truly focused on life over death.

At the same time, its people were coming to grips with the most unspeakable loss. Many mothers lost multiple children; many children, their parents. But consider this small anecdote, one day in the middle of a city of two million people, at high noon; traffic on a major street came to a complete and silent stop. We passed a warning to “shhh” along, car to car as people turned off their motors. Everyone for a kilometer, shut up. Because on the top of a mountain of rubble, rescue workers were trying to hear voices buried beneath. Imagine that happening anywhere.

It was difficult to witness corpses stacked by the curb, hoping they’d be picked up; or in the middle of a roundabout, seeing a woman’s body frozen in that moment of the earthquake.

For me, the hospitals and clinics were the hardest. They were alive, yes, but suffering and there are so many amputees. Limbs severed from the rescue or to prevent gangrene creeping further.

We were working so hard, you just don’t wallow, and by comparison to Haitians, our coping was inconsequential. And yes, the CBC does offer follow up counseling should any of us think we need it.

My question is about the dead. Could the dead not have been treated better? Was there no way for the bodies to be moved to a site where they could be handled with more dignity and care.

Should they not have been photographed for future possible identification purposes, etc., - I'm not sure of all the proper procedures in a situation like this of mass death ..., but the mass burials - just thrown into mass graves - uncerimoniously. It seems to me that the treatment of the dead has been appalling.

Could you please comment - thank you.

Paul Hunter: Appalling is a good word for it Maureen. I started to wonder about the same issues you raise when we saw our first bodies that had been set on fire, out in the middle of the city’s downtown streets. And there were lots of them.

People told me it was because the government wasn’t collecting the dead, and they were afraid of disease (who can blame them, the bodies were covered in flies and the stench was simply horrible.) When authorities did collect bodies, there were so many of them they simply took them to that mass grave we visited and reported upon. I saw no attempt to identify the remains.

The only thing I can say to your question is, absolutely they should have been treated better.

When we were at a medical clinic towards the end of the second week, we saw a woman holding up a photo of her husband to passersby with the caption, “Disappeared.”

His body could be in that mass grave. If it is, she may well never find out.

How difficult is it to manage without real phone lines? Who's in charge of rebuilding them, and how badly were the lines hit?

Paul Hunter: We took satellite phones and even they didn’t really work that well. So we did a lot of sharing the telephone if someone managed to get through on any device.

As for doing our job, it wasn’t actually that problematic. I knew I had to go out there each morning, find a story, come back, write and edit the piece then send it (via satellite) to Toronto for broadcast. I didn’t need to talk to my editorial masters much until late in the day and then, only briefly.

For everyone else though, yes, communication was a serious matter. But like many developing countries, Haiti is much more of a cell phone place than landline. And by the weekend following the quake, cell service had been largely restored (which is much easier to have done than to repair all the fallen telephone cables.)

Susan Ormiston: Hi John, from my hometown of Saskatoon! One of the most stunning things was how quickly communication returned to Port-au-Prince. When we arrived on Friday, a mere 48 hours after the quake, local cellphones were working.

AND our Blackberry email kicked in later that day. As I’ve seen in many ‘third world’ situations — everyone uses a mobile phone, not a landline. And those operations were repaired and working relatively quickly.

As an aside, we travel with a satellite phone which can hit a satellite most places in the world and connect us. It usually, but not always, works.

How do you respond to those who say the coverage has been too graphic? Are you able to respect the dignity of victims, alive and dead, while still conveying with as much urgency as you can the horror that you have been seeing?

Paul Hunter: The most graphic images I put on The National from here (and they were very graphic) led directly to the Chief Operating Officer of Air Canada marching out the next morning, getting medical supplies and equipment and flying them to Haiti to give them to the Port-au-Prince medical clinic featured in my report.

He told me himself it was seeing those pictures that made him go out and do that. He also made his staff watch the report to see those pictures, in order to push them to go out and buy even more supplies that he would then transport to Haiti.

That said, I think about that issue a lot.

Balancing graphic images with the message we are trying to get across is a complicated matter. No one wants to be gratuitous about it. Some issues we face include, who will be watching this at home? Will it be children? Do the people in such circumstances want to be photographed? What is the line between graphic and too graphic? Can you make the same point with something less gruesome?

All of those questions must be considered, but there is no textbook for it. For me, I believed the one thing people here needed more than anything was help. And I used the images I thought would best convey that.

You know, it takes a lot to shock people these days. I believe our work in Haiti did that, but that shock was a good thing because it brought results.

Susan Ormiston: It was hard to see any coverage, as we were too busy creating it. But I know CBC debated at some point the nature of our images.

Personally, I don’t think what we sent home was too graphic. Sanitizing images is a dangerous game. What we saw was horrible to witness, however it was — and is — the reality for Haitians. That’s what they were seeing. Who are we to ‘soften’ those images?

At the same time, showing grotesque images for shock value is not acceptable. And there is a danger of cumulative images which become too horrific for people to watch. That’s the line.

I was struck profoundly by the indignity of death in the first few days. I saw piles of bodies, uncovered, stiff and bloated by death, many missing limbs. I wondered why no one had recovered them or buried them. I can only assume in the chaos of over 100,000 dead in a few hours that their loved ones had perished too, or were wounded or couldn’t find them. I needed to remind myself often that just a few days prior, these were living, loving human beings with dreams, desires, and fears. Their corpses did not represent their footprints in life.

I've made a healthy donation to MSF for their work helping the people of Haiti. I'm concerned, as well, though about animal welfare. Has anyone actually seen any specific organizations at work on the ground helping the animals of Haiti?

Paul Hunter: First of all, as an aside, on the day we drove into Port-au-Prince, Médecins Sans Frontières was the first aid organization we encountered. And we saw them around the city often in the days that followed. Your MSF money was hard at work.

But to your question Linda, to be honest, the only animals I generally saw in Port-au-Prince were street dogs, goats, and pigs. All lived amid the decaying food and garbage of the gutters. And this is the way it was before the quake. Haiti is not an entirely pet friendly place. There was a house cat at the place in which we stayed, until one night when a street dog ate it. We also had roosters where we were, which unfathomably felt the urge to crow 24/7 but that’s another story.

Susan Ormiston: Sorry Linda, I don't have much information on that. I certainly didn’t see any animal rescue teams.

After the world media goes away and international attention shifts to something else, what human rights structures exist in Haiti to ensure that aid money is distributed fairly, that corruption does not blossom, and that the status quo inequalities that define Haiti do not resume to rebuild Haiti as it was, with all these built in dysfunctions in place again?

Paul Hunter: That is the biggest continuing problem facing Haiti (not to mention long-running.)

I wonder if the world has somehow (finally) actually taken notice of Haiti’s never-ending serious problems. And by that I mean, not just the earthquake. I’ve found it remarkable how many friends and viewers have written me to say how much they’ve now learned about Haiti’s sorry history because of reading about the place due to the earthquake.

Let’s hope the world does not turn its attention back to celebrities, fad diets and boys in balloons. There’s reason to think this time it won’t, but we in the news industry are just as guilty as anyone else in ‘moving on.’ My hope is to return here in a few months and see how or whether, things have moved forward. (Attention: CBC News managers!)

Susan Ormiston: This is a very critical and important question. Haiti’s problems were immense before the quake and now there is an additional, deep layer.

This week's Montreal conference on rebuilding addressed that question. On who will ‘mind’ the money? It’s not clear yet.

In one sense, some Haitians see this as an opportunity to start over. A kind of 'Haitian relief program' which could give them a new chance. Others are very pessimistic that structures inside Haiti will change and that the money won’t simply disappear into corrupt officials and wealthy, connected persons.

The world’s attention has already started to shift. It’s everyone’s responsibility to keep a focus on Haiti. Canadians have contributed millions of dollars, and it's important to keep asking, for what? That’s our job to keep asking going forward as well.

How do you personally cope with your own feelings? What is the biggest impact of this experience on you? Is there something that, after you come back home, will not be the same anymore?

Thanks for doing a great job!

Paul Hunter: In truth, Rocky, I don’t know the answer. And there are so many aspects to that question, it’s hard even to know where to begin. If I stop and think about things we’ve encountered in the past couple of weeks, my hair would stand on end and my eyes would fill with tears. I know that because it has, and they do.

As journalists we work very hard in any circumstance to keep a step back and simply observe and report what happens before us. But what do you do when someone says, "Help me find my baby in the rubble of my house!" and how do you feel about that afterward, when you have been unable to (we tried, but we were unsuccessful)? As a journalist you cannot ever be an advocate for anything. Yet, when you see how messed up things are, how do you not find a way to say to the world “Help this place,”?

I will take away many things. I will never forget the tremendously positive spirit of Haitians in the face of such adversity. I will never forget the bravery of the kids I saw submitting to emergency medical treatment without anaesthetic. And I will do what I can to come back here soon and report on how aid and restoration progresses, in the hope that if it hasn’t progressed much, reporting on such failures might bring improvement.

Susan Ormiston: What I bring home is gratitude. And humility. For all the blessings we have in Canada. Clean water, well constructed homes, living children, medical care. And a reinforced commitment to keep a spotlight on those places in the world that have so little.

I will remember always, the Haitian spirit. And the collective energy of a nation after such a catastrophe. Also the helping hands — the global response, particularly in the medical fields. To see them work in an emergency under dire conditions is truly inspiring.

Thank you both for your top-notch reporting. My question is why have they stopped looking for any more survivors?

Paul Hunter: Interestingly enough, even after they switched from rescue to recovery they still found people who’d been living buried in the rubble. The conventional wisdom at first was that someone would survive three days trapped that way and they’ve been finding survivors long after that.

We met a little girl who had been found alive six days after the quake. Those who found her thought she was dead and had brought the ‘body’ to a medical clinic for disposal. A doctor took a long look at her and said something like, ‘Hey, wait a a minute, she’s alive.’ And when we saw her, she was up and alert, though not yet speaking. She was about 7 years old.

When do you give up? At what point do you say energy can be better used somewhere else in this mess? If it were me out there, I’d say never give up.

Susan Ormiston: I assume there is a protocol based on other natural disasters which weighs the chances of live rescues after a certain number of days, given this kind of destruction.

Is fuel donated ? Or do aid agencies have to buy fuel, which seems defeating.

Paul Hunter: Here are the things for which there are lineups right now in Port-au-Prince: food, water, fuel and money. The funny thing about fuel is that there is plenty of gasoline at the service stations, but you need electricity to work the pumps to get the fuel, and for the longest time there wasn’t electricity. That’s been somewhat rectified now.

We brought gasoline in with us from the Dominican Republic for use in our generators and there was a steady stream of vehicles and people leaving the city to get fuel. I can’t speak for aid agencies, but presume they likewise bring their own.

Susan Ormiston: Agencies have certain essentials to operate and the rest they’ll get wherever they can — it’s a matter of urgency and timing.

Correctional Service of Canada was helping Haiti build their prisons and train their prison staff. During the earthquake many prisoners if not all escaped. What is Canadian plan now for these prisons and prisoners that escaped?

Paul Hunter: I’m sorry to say I have no idea, Ken. I’m going to pass that on to our news desk in Toronto so we can pursue it. But it certainly is true about the prisoner escape, we saw the semi-destroyed prison ourselves. It’s our understanding that many of the escapees fled to Cite Soleil — Haiti’s poorest slum — which had been just beginning to get back on its feet after years of extreme violence. Another sad side effect of the quake.

Susan Ormiston: Good follow up story, Ken. Unfortunately, I don't have data on that either.