Harris Haiti Relief Weekly Update from the Field

We left our last blog with the news that we had moved our Land Mobile Radio (LMR) site to the top of a ridge (at Boutilles). This more than doubled our coverage the Port Au Prince-area . Having accomplished that, we began Monday with a variety of tasks to accomplish.

Ngan Ly's situational awareness maps have been used to plan trips by relief organizations. To the left they are being used by Sun Mountain International of Quito, Ecuador to plan their day's mission. Sun Mountain is here preparing reports on how to best address recovery issues (where to put rubble, check local water quality, collect data on needs in different areas, etc.)

Earlier editions of this blog mentioned that the main hospital in Port au Prince, St. Francois de Sales, collapsed during the earthquake. A tent city was built around the hospital to take over its operations. The area around the hospital is crowded with many bodies still remaining in its ruins. It has been decided by the Haitian government to build a new tent city in the countryside north of Port au Prince, as a recovery area. Team 2 was tasked with setting up a satellite communications system there, with Internet and IP phone access. In the image on the left, we load the satellite equipment on a truck at the CHF International warehouse. Jeff McLean is helped by Eduaord Bazile (our interpreter) and Mark Miles.

We arrive at the installation site; a partially completed new home that survived the earthquake.

Also mentioned earlier in this blog is Luc Bouquet, a registered nurse practitioner from Palm Bay, FL. Originally from Haiti, he came back to deliver medical supplies to quake-stricken St. Francois de Sales but decided stay on, working long hours at the makeshift hospital. He is setting up the new hospital. Here he consults with the Harris team about his plans.

Here Team 2 sets up a C-band SATCOM reflector on the flat roof of the house. Left to right: Mark Miles, Jeff McLean, Edouard Bazile, and Ngan Ly (kneeling). It was very hot on that roof!

Ngan Ly helps with final assembly of the reflector. Once complete, we had to manually aim it at "the bird." Once this was done, we were able to provide the needed services.

In addition to these activities, Ngan Ly made a presentation at the United Nations complex at the airport on his Situational Awareness work here.

— Michael J. Frazier

Michael J. Frazier is a senior engineer from Harris RF Communications Division in Lynchburg, VA. He is one of four members of the second team of Harris employees deployed to Haiti.

The past week has been one of transition from the initial efforts of Team 1 to set up equipment quickly and get "on the air" to one of forging relationships with other organizations and discovering ways to best deploy the equipment over the next few months. We are providing critical communications infrastructure until the local Internet Service Providers and others can restore their operations.

We started Monday February 15th with at meeting at the airport of the ETC (Emergency Telecommunications Cluster) group, which is a clearing-house for all the organizations using telecoms. This was on the UN campus at the Port Au Prince airport. The UN had a permanent facility there before the earthquake, which has since been expanded considerably. Even though the airport is just a few miles away, it took a whole hour to get there due to traffic and street conditions. At this meeting, we forged new relationships and have been working to consolidate plans for how to proceed. Our leader, Jeff McClean, decided we should all attend so we would all get "the big picture."

We are starting to work with the Red Cross, Habitat for Humanity, and the University of Miami, and starting relationships with others. Yesterday, we lent 12 radios and chargers to Habitat for Humanity from Costa Rica. A grateful Marcos Canales of H for H picked them up - programmed, charged, and ready to go - at the CHF Headquarters on Tuesday.

On the lighter side, due to a mix-up the cooks were given the night off so Jeff and Brett decided to cook dinner. I was impressed! We had spaghetti with a cheese and tomato sauce and garlic bread. Those guys know how to cook!

Many thanks to Brett Blankenship for staying an extra week to help transition Team 2 into operation. His knowledge of both the equipment and the situation on the ground here in Haiti was invaluable to us. He finally got to go home Wednesday morning. Thanks Brett!

There comes a time in every man's life when he must do the laundry.

We take some time to get organized and work on catching up with the paperwork side of things.

On clear days we have a beautiful view from the roof of the CHF Headquarters

One of our goals is to move the LMR (Land Mobile Radio) system to a better location that will cover more of the city. We got permisson to use a ridgetop site where other equipment is located so we can have power and security (there is an on site live-in security guard).

Mark Miles and Mike Frazier spent Thursday on site preparing to move the LMR site and working with NetHope. We are working together and helping each other. As a non-profit organization, their help was instrumental in getting us permission to use the site.

We meet with Reginald Chauvet of Haicom, S.A. He is the president of the company and manages the site.

The photo to the left shows the new area we will cover. We cannot cover all of Port-au-Prince from the current location at CHF Headquarters because of terrain blocking the signal.

We thoroughly explored our options for installation of the antennas.

Francis Boon installed equipment for NetHope on the tower. Harris and NetHope worked together with local provider Multilink to install an Internet link to the President of Haiti's home!

A cloud rolled in and made it foggy for a while.

Additional Photos:






— Michael J. Frazier

Michael J. Frazier is a senior engineer from Harris RF Communications Division in Lynchburg, VA. He is one of four members of the second team of Harris employees deployed to Haiti.

Headed home tomorrow. That makes me an official short-timer here in Haiti. If all goes as planned I get to helicopter from Port Au Prince to the Dominican Republic and then fly commercial to Orlando, leaving my new Harris friends and Haitian acquaintances behind. Guess Jimmy Sheppard finally had enough of me snapping pictures and asking questions.

I'll miss the team and the camaraderie that tough conditions and a focused mission bring. I assembled the team in Camp Harris for a final picture, including our newest teammate — Varnek-Edouard Bazile. He's been assigned to us by CHF International as our interpreter, local expert, and jack-of-all-trades. He'll be invaluable as the second wave of Harris personnel transition with the departing first team.

Edouard's personal story is heart-wrenching but tragically commonplace in post-quake Haiti. A British news channel captured his story here.

On a more uplifting note, Angelina Jolie was in town today doing good things and looking good. Unfortunately, we didn't bump into her while we were out doing good things and looking bad. Nearly two weeks in tents with occasional cold showers has taken its toll on us — not to say we're a team of "Brad Pitts" to begin with.

Today was microwave day for the team. Microwave radio — not microwave oven. But as we worked to install one of the radios at a food storage warehouse down at the pier, it felt as if Haiti, and we along with her, had been thrown into a giant microwave oven and set on high. It was hot!

The heat and the hard work took its toll on the team. I snapped a picture of Brett Blankenship, who fell asleep at a table following a status meeting. This wasn't your typical PowerPoint-induced cat-nap common in the corporate world — it was genuine and complete fatigue.

We did get to blow off a little steam tonight with a dinner out (not with Angelina). The CHF International guys took the Harris and Inveneo/NetHope teams to a local Italian restaurant. We had a great time.

I'd like to take up just a little space in this blog to thank a few big people. Thanks to Jimmy and Dave Balser for picking me for the team. Thanks to the folks at CHF International for being so hospitable. And finally, thanks to my Harris teammates — Jimmy, Adam, Brett, Roger, Scott, and the Two Seans. By the way, Adam, you can have my side of the tent.

Au revoir from Haiti!

— Sleighton Meyer

The old saying goes, "to the victors go the spoils." In the case of Haiti, Mother Nature takes her spoils one catastrophe at a time.

On the lighter side, it was our own Sean Munjal who enjoyed the spoils of a Saints victory. In a friendly wager, he picked the Saints over Scott Hehner's Colts. This morning Sean took payment from Scott in the form of a case of Prestige beer — the local favorite. The rest of the team is hoping that Sean is feeling generous tonight!

As the post-Super Bowl celebration litter was being washed away from Bourbon Street this morning, our head coach, Jimmy Sheppard, had Team Harris right back down to business here in Haiti.

I snapped pictures and asked lots of questions.

Roger Maier and Scott completed the Ku-band SATCOM install here at CHF International HQ in an effort to increase available bandwidth for the imagery work that Adam Brown is doing with our Situation Awareness System. Adam has an important presentation scheduled for tomorrow with CHF International and other relief agencies operating in and around Haiti. Fingers crossed on Adam getting wide acceptance for use of the tool in ongoing recovery efforts.

I snapped more pictures and asked more questions.

Brett Blankenship accompanied our new friends at Inveneo to a warehouse far northwest of the city to install the last microwave hop needed to complete our improvised network between CHF and Save Our Children. With the addition of a network router and a few more tweaks by the Harris/Inveneo team, CHF International should have a high-speed network backbone that blankets Port Au Prince by tomorrow.

I snapped even more pictures and asked even more questions.

The Two Seans (Fitzpatrick and Munjal) accompanied Jimmy back down to the dustbowl that is Port Au Prince Airport to look in on the FAA and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Dr. Harris does house calls in Haiti!

I snapped more pictures and asked more questions.

Somewhere along the line, Coach Jimmy sidled up to me and asked if I'd be okay with heading home on Wednesday. Note to self: I think Jimmy's had enough of my picture-taking and question-asking.

— Sleighton Meyer

Mother Nature 25. Haiti 0. Twenty-five is the number of major natural catastrophes (documented) to visit this impoverished country since the 1500s. If there was a Super Bowl for natural disasters, Haiti would be the world's biggest loser.

As I got ready to watch the NFL version of the Super Bowl with my new temporary family here in Haiti, all I could think about was how badly beaten this country is.

The bunch of "MacGyvers" I've been deployed to Haiti with figured out how to pipe the Super Bowl into this facility and project it onto a 42" LCD. So we're about to enjoy pizza and beer following a week of intense work with repetitive assaults on the senses. Given the Creole connection between Haiti and New Orleans, I've gotta "geaux" with the Saints tonight.

The weekend started with a three-hour field trip to one of CHF's satellite offices on the coast in Pettit Goave, passing through the epicenter of the quake. I joined three of my teammates (Jimmy Sheppard, Scott Hehner, and Roger Maier) on this trip. The sites on the drive were apocalyptic — crevasses in the roads, flattened buildings, bed sheet and tin roof shanties, grass huts, and donkeys providing the primary source of transportation.

The planned one-day trip turned into an overnight stay. It was the most difficult installation thus far — hump one ton of SATCOM terminal equipment and tools (handful at a time) up four flights of stairs then up through a makeshift ladder through a hole in the roof of the building. We were totally depleted by the end of the day. To add insult to injury, we slept with a squadron of angry mosquitoes followed by the rudest of wake-up calls at 4 a.m. — our first aftershock since arriving in Haiti. No rest for the weary.

While we were out on the coast, the Two Seans (Fitzpatrick and Munjal) were back at the airport looking in on the FAA and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel stationed there. While there, our own Sean Munjal bumped into President Clinton. Rumor has it Sean asked President Clinton if he could interest him in a Harris radio.

In our spare time this weekend we installed 60 batteries at CHF HQ, shored up their electrical system, and installed another SATCOM system to increase bandwidth in anticipation of communications demand increasing as we bring imagery into the facility.

A picture taken by Sean Fitzpatrick is probably the best illustration of the spirit and faith of the Haitian people. In it, the crucifix still stands in the foreground with the hollowed out shell of the cathedral behind it. Faith prevails in this small corner of an otherwise beaten Port Au Prince.

— Sleighton Meyer

After yesterday's marathon installation at the St. Francois de Sales Hospital, today's less demanding schedule seemed like a walk in the park. Or better yet, a climb of a tree in the park. We took some time to blow off steam this morning so Sean Munjal scurried 15 feet up a palm tree, native style, to pluck a ripe coconut from its branches. The locals were as impressed with his climbing talents as I've been with his engineering skills.

After re-distributing Land Mobile Radios to the USAID/CHF International staff, Jimmy Sheppard sent members of the team in several different directions.

Brett Blankenship and Scott Hehner went to the local Save Our Children facility to install one of the microwave radios for the project we are working with Inveneo to give Save Our Children badly needed connectivity. More work to be done at another site across town, but today's installation was major progress.

The Two Seans (Fitzpatrick and Munjal) worked with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to help improve the interoperability of the Harris radios with the agency's existing radios. More work to be done there tomorrow but good progress is being made.

Roger Maier and I went to a local hardware store to purchase all their car batteries to shore up the back-up power supply for CHF HQ. Long-story-short: CHF has never been on the Port Au Prince power grid and runs off a generator and battery setup. The batteries were toast so we're going to replace them with brand new ones in order to keep the coffee brewing around here.

After delivering the batteries, Roger and I made a trip over to our storage area to pick up another SATCOM system for our installation tomorrow at Pettit Goave.

Tomorrow's installation at CHF's satellite office in Pettit Goave will take all day, the majority of the day being a commute through the most devastated part of the country. We're told the roads are badly damaged and traffic will be heavy. Are we there yet?

By the way, if you are thinking about coming to Haiti anytime soon (hint, hint to our replacement crew) — beware of the tarantulas. Apparently I missed that one somewhere in the travel guide. Just for grins, I threw a dime down next to one of the beasts and took a picture to show a size comparison. I think that spider still has my dime.

— Sleighton Meyer

Trusted at the intersection of life and data. That's our tagline for Harris Healthcare Solutions. Today it meant much more than a tagline to the staff and patients at St. Francois de Sales Hospital in the heart of Port Au Prince, where our Harris team spent a grueling day bringing much needed connectivity to the devastated hospital.

The mission: install SATCOM service with a phone bank and wireless access to laptops — all inside a converted café at the center of a courtyard now serving as a makeshift hospital of lumber and tarps. Mission accomplished!

Many Haitians, including medical staff, died in the hospital's main building during the quake. Most of the bodies still remain entombed there, just feet away from where we were working. It was hot, dusty, and smelly. But the all-Harris team pushed through it like pros. As we loaded up to head back to HQ after a hard but satisfying day's work, we got to catch a smiling Luc Bouquet place the first phone call from the hospital's brand new Internet café to his wife in Palm Bay. Now the mostly volunteer medical staff has reliable phone and Internet connectivity back to the U.S. and anywhere in the world — free of charge. I'd say we're living up to our tagline down here in Haiti.

There were other accomplishments today but none as rewarding as the hospital.

After breakfast we issued lots of Land Mobile Radios (LMRs) to USAID workers. The radios give them better coverage, providing them increased mobility to touch more people and places. Adam Brown also demonstrated our Situation Awareness System to USAID staff, who expressed interest in using the tool for their operations.

Jimmy Sheppard and Sean Fitzpatrick checked in with the FAA at the airport where we did our first install earlier in the week, as well as discussed any longer-term requirements. While there, Sean met with a contingent of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents who are providing security and escort for the FAA. The agents are now using 10 of our LMRs for their critical security mission.

Over a wonderful dinner of home-cooked jambalaya, members of the team consulted with our new friends at Inveneo to go over tomorrow's plan to install microwave radios west of town to bring the local Save Our Children organization into the network.

Healthcare IT, Public Safety communications, and aviation communications all in one day! Jimmy pushed the team to its limits today, and the team responded well.

— Sleighton Meyer

Slept like a rock last night thanks to Nyquil PM. Unfortunately, after today's visit to the St. Fracois de Sales Hospital and the horrible sights and smells there, it's going to take a lot more than Nyquil to help me sleep tonight.

There was a silver lining to the trip to the hospital, however. That silver lining came in the form of Luc Bouquet, an Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioner who normally works out of the 4 Care Walk-in Clinic in Palm Bay but has been here in Haiti for the last three weeks working in the most horrid conditions imaginable. Luc is from Haiti and here to help his homeland. Our original mission was to deliver medical supplies and food donated from MIMA to the hospital by way of Luc and then move on. Once there, we were moved to do more. So we're going back tomorrow to set up a SATCOM system and phones for them. Luc was thrilled — then so were we.

Before leaving for the hospital we conducted site surveys at Internews and Medicos Sans Fronteras (Spain's version of Doctors without Borders) to see what we could do to help them. Both organizations are located in very rugged, mountainous terrain so we're looking at collaborating with an organization out of San Francisco called Inveneo. Their tagline is "connecting those that need it most" and they just happened to be camped right here with us at CHF International HQ.

If we can work with Inveneo on a combined satellite and microwave communications solution, we will be able to bring communications not only to the organizations already mentioned but also to the local Save Our Children organization. The collaboration between Harris and Inveneo started this morning with a joint meeting, where Inveneo software and LMRs were pressed into action to aid deployed technicians in plotting microwave links to survey the viability of linking to the three organizations, it looked to me like innovation and collaboration at its best, stay tuned...

The highlight of the day, second to the encounter with Luc, was lunch. The CHF cook added a wonderful twist to the daily staple of beans and rice: boullette de vionole (meatballs). These weren't your ordinary meatballs — they were super-fried and spicy. Mmm, mmm, good! Only thing missing was an ice cold Diet Coke (the thing I've missed most).

So according to Jimmy, tomorrow's game plan is to focus on the hospital. In his words, "it'll be a win-win all around." The hospital and its patients get much-needed communications infrastructure and the Harris team gets the satisfaction of seeing first-hand what a difference its collective expertise and commitment can make for so many people in need.

Thanks to my wife, Mandy, for throwing that Nyquil in my duffel bag!

— Sleighton Meyer

Awoke with a start early this morning to the crackle of automatic gunfire and the drunken ranting (in Creole) of a local man. It took just a few seconds for me to realize that this was really happening — not simply a bad dream about a night gone wrong on Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras.

Adapt and improvise turned out to be the words of the day today as the Harris team tackled the installations of various communications and information systems for our host aid organization, CHF International. With the support of Program Manager Dave Balser from home-base in Melbourne, the team persevered through an assortment of setbacks, including missing connectors and cables, and a broken antenna mast to make tremendous progress on three fronts.

First, Roger Maier and Scott Hehner led the setup of a C-band SATCOM terminal, transit case electronics, cabling, and the programming of IP phones. As a result, CHF now has 2 Mbps of increased bandwidth for phone calls and Internet service, free of charge, thanks to Harris Maritime Communication Services.

Next, Adam Brown from Harris GCSD set up the Situation Awareness System inside CHF HQ. This software-based system will allow CHF operations personnel to visually track their ground assets, as well as the movements and activities of their employees helping residents in and around Port Au Prince.

Finally, the biggest challenge of the day was the installation of the Land Mobile Radio (LMR) electronics and antenna mast atop CHF HQ. Led by Sean Fitzpatrick and Sean Munjal of Harris RF's Public Safety and Professional Communications (PSPC) business, the antenna installation proved to be particularly difficult. The two Seans (as we've named them) challenged Brett Blankenship (from Broadcast Communications) and the rest of the Harris team to get creative in erecting a 40-foot LMR antenna mast. The team came up with a makeshift solution of rope and guy wires to successfully erect the bendable composite structure during gusty winds — without breaking it. Adapt and improvise. CHF now has an LMR system that will cover 80% of Port Au Prince, thanks to the creativity of an all-Harris team.

Tomorrow we'll install a SATCOM system for Internews Networks, an international media development organization whose mission is to empower local media worldwide. We're also going to try to find the MIMA medical team from Melbourne operating here in Port Au Prince — we have a "medical care package" to deliver to them.

Bonne nuit from Port Au Prince.

— Sleighton Meyer

So much for Sunday being a day of rest. Wake-up call was 6 a.m. With the exception of the pride and satisfaction of greeting an appreciative FAA team at the airfield, thanks to new satellite connectivity from Harris, Sunday turned out to be a grind-it-out day of loading, unloading, and loading again—10 tons of cargo from Port Au Prince Airport to CHF International's secure storage facility on the outskirts of the city.

The movement of all this equipment required two trips with two six-ton flatbed trucks each trip. Fortunately, traffic was not a challenge today as most Haitians took the day off. An unfortunate byproduct of fewer people and automobiles on the street was that we were able to see more damage and widespread poverty. Pancaked buildings were a common sight along the way, with people still digging through the rubble looking for friends and family—a cinderblock at a time. One of our drivers, Mileil, lost his little sister in the quake. He said he knows where she is buried but hasn't found her body yet. Even on a Sunday, the streets were teeming with people just trying to eek out a living.

One of the most unsettling experiences of the day took place when our host agency hired local labor to help us offload our equipment from the trucks. The scene was chaotic and tense, with dozens of local men competing fiercely and shouting at one another just for the chance to do a day's work for minimal pay. It got so heated at one point that an armed guard had to intervene. A few of the men had to be forcibly removed — all within a few feet of me and Jimmy. It was bittersweet to see 10 very happy men chosen for the work detail while dozes of others had to be turned away as 100 or so women and children looked on.

We ended the day by finally pitching the last tents at Camp Harris. We're now up to six tents and eight guys. I'm bunking with Adam, another former Marine. Conditions are pretty Spartan but the folks at CHF International have really made us feel welcome, providing meals, facilities (albeit cold showers), and storage for our tons of equipment. After all, in this harsh, dusty, smelly environment, a cold shower is a great shower.

So our plan tomorrow is to give back to CHF International. Our team leader, Jimmy Sheppard, says that by the end of the day tomorrow we should have a SATCOM terminal system and a Land Mobile Radio (LMR) antenna installed at their headquarters. According to Jimmy, the LMR antenna will provide 80% coverage of the city of Port Au Prince. We'll then be able to distribute dozens of our handheld LMR radios to CHF relief workers, who will have increased mobility and interoperability to lend a helping hand to Haiti. Now that's returning the favor!

– Sleighton Meyer

"Haiti is dead," said my driver/security escort, Meleil, as we made our way through the ruins of downtown Port au Prince toward our makeshift camp at CHF International's Headquarters. CHF International is our host relief agency and the organization that Harris is coordinating its efforts with in Haiti.

After Mileil and I finally completed the 10-mile drive through chaos and utter devastation, I understood exactly what he meant. Buildings and infrastructure might be dead and broken but not the people. They were everywhere going about the business of recovery.

The day started with lots of promise by way of a short hop on a military C-12 cargo plane from San Isidro Airfield in the Dominican Republic headed for Port au Prince Airport to rendezvous with (Harris employees) Jimmy Sheppard, our team leader, and Brett Blankenship — and 10 tons of equipment.

Dropping into Port au Prince was like entering a war zone. The airport was a teeming dust bowl of humanity, aircraft and automobiles of every size. Amid the chaos, Jimmy quickly realized that Plan B for the day was in order, so he split the team into two groups of four.

Four (Roger Maier, Scott Hehner, Sean Fitzpatrick, and Sean Munjal) stayed at the airport grounds to install a SATCOM system for the FAA's portable air traffic control tower there, bringing the agency a much more robust and long-term solution for Internet connectivity back to the U.S. — free of charge.

I went with Jimmy and two others (Brett and Adam) for the 90-minute drive (only 10 miles) with Meleil to CHF International headquarters to establish contact with the leadership there and stand up Camp Harris. We're now part of the family at CHF, ending the evening with a home-cooked spaghetti meal, a welcome treat after a day of beef jerky on the run.

The plan Sunday is to re-integrate the team, truck the remaining cargo from the airport to Camp Harris and unload it. If we have enough time, we'll begin work to establish SATCOM for CHF International. It's going to be another busy day in Haiti.

– Sleighton Meyer

After two weeks of planning and preparation and several starts and stops, I finally departed from Melbourne today with a small team of employees from Harris Corporation for a two-week mission to restore much needed communications infrastructure in earthquake-ravaged Haiti.

• Our first stop was the Dominican Republic, where me and my five more fortunate teammates enjoyed a leisurely Friday evening at the International Hotel and Casino in beautiful downtown Santo Domingo. While me, Roger Maier, Adam Brown, Scott Hehner, Sean Fitzpatrick, and Sean Munjal enjoyed a cushy commercial flight into the Dominican Republic and one last night of civilization before going into Haiti, two of our less fortunate teammates were having a totally different travel experience. Jimmy Sheppard, our team leader, and Brett Blankenship drew short straws and had to take the road (or route) less traveled — flying straight into Port Au Prince with nearly 10 tons of Harris equipment inside the freezing and deafening confines of a C-130 cargo transport plane.



• Wake-up call for the Dominican Republic contingent (Saturday) comes at 5 a.m. so that we can hop a C-12 transport plane from the Dominican Republic to Port Au Prince to rendezvous with Jimmy and Brett and the C-130 full of Harris equipment and humanitarian supplies. Once there, our challenge will be to get the plane unloaded as quickly as possible and to get camp set up before nightfall.

The 10 tons of cargo to be unloaded includes seven portable satellite communications terminals, some 300 handheld radios, situational awareness systems, medical equipment, and other supplies. And just as important as the big-ticket stuff — the tents, cots, air mattresses and other supplies that will be home sweet home for the next two weeks.

So if all goes according to plan tomorrow, we should ready to start the real work by Sunday. Stay tuned.

– Sleighton Meyer