Rushing Toward Disaster—

Newtowner Is Part Of AmeriCares’ Quick Response In Haiti

By Shannon Hicks

The first AmeriCares emergency airlift, a DC6 carrying more than $6 million worth of critically needed medical aid for Haiti earthquake survivors, arrived in Port-au-Prince on Sunday, five nights after the island was hit with its worst earthquake of the last 200 years. Newtown resident and AmeriCares manager of emergency response and gift-in-kind process management Bret McEvoy was there when the plane touched down at 8:30 pm.

Bret had been in Haiti for three days by then. As Haitians in the earthquake’s epicenter who survived last Tuesday’s disaster were finding their way to safety or seeking help, Jane and Dick McEvoy were finding out that their son would be flying into that zone.

“We first heard he might be going to Haiti when he came home from his job at AmeriCares headquarters in Stamford Tuesday night,” Jane Raban McEvoy told The Bee this week. “Dick called to tell me that Bret had come home from work midday to pack and was to catch a 1 am plane the following morning. Bret called me on his way back to work so I could say the mother stuff, ‘Be careful and I love you.’”

Fortunately those plans changed and the McEvoys were able to have their son home an extra night. Instead of a 1 am flight Wednesday morning, Bret had to be at the airport on Thursday morning by 6:30. Dick McEvoy drove his son to Westchester County Airport in White Plains, while Jane was in New Jersey helping her father prepare for surgery.

Bret caught a flight to Costa Rica, where they picked up another AmeriCares rescue worker, and then they flew to Haiti, arriving within 48 hours of the earthquake. Meanwhile, his parents hoped for the best.

“It was pretty surreal,” said Jane. “In many ways it was a godsend to have to totally focus on my dad. All over the hospital huge screens were blaring scary messages and, of course, devastating images. At the end of the day I saw something about planes being unable to land and fuel shortages. Still no word from Bret, but we weren’t expecting to be able to hear anything.”

The McEvoys heard from AmeriCares later that evening, however, and all was good.

“Someone from AmeriCares left a message on our machine that Bret and the rest of the team had landed safely, and giving us a number we could call for updates,” Jane said.

Bret is coordinating the distribution of AmeriCares medical aid for earthquake survivors.

His parents know that their son is safe thanks to the occasional email he is able to send them. The McEvoys received a quick note from their son over the weekend that said, in part, “Just wanted to let you know that all is okay here. It’s frustrating how slow things move, but we’re making progress.”

They also received an email from their son this past Wednesday morning within 90 minutes of the 6.1-magnitude aftershock that rumbled through the already precarious region.

“In case you hear… We just had a significant aftershock. We are all okay,” Bret’s email said. It was brief but enough to let his parents know that the AmeriCares manager was still safe, and working.

The McEvoys worry about their son, but they have faith in him.

“We are [worried] but we’re understandably proud too and the people of Haiti are in such desperate need,” said Jane, who also said that AmeriCares “is also good about keeping us updated. The staff told us they are in touch with the team daily, which is very comforting too.

“What most definitely helps with the worry is how experienced, dedicated, professional, and compassionate the people at AmeriCares are. We trust them to do their best to keep Bret safe.”

“This is exactly what I would have wanted to be doing at that age,” Dick McEvoy said Wednesday afternoon. “I’m thrilled for all the kids who are down there and able to help like this. I told him, on the way to the airport, to be careful and not to take any unwarranted risks.

“But I also told him that I love him and I’m proud of him.”

On The Ground In Haiti

Jane and Dick McEvoy cannot get in contact with their son on a regular basis these days, so they are doing the next best thing: They are keeping an eye on him from afar. Along with the McEvoys, the rest of the world also has the opportunity to follow Bret’s work and get a firsthand account of what life is like right now in an area where tens of thousands of lives were lost January 12 when a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck. It was centered about ten miles southwest of Port-au-Prince, and reportedly felt as far away as Jamaica and Cuba (approximately 200 miles).

According to the UN, as of January 20 — one week and a day after the earthquake — 75,000 bodies have been recovered, while 121 people have been released alive from under the rubble.

At least 250,000 people have been injured, and 1.5 million have been left homeless.

Bret and AmeriCares Chief of Staff Carol Shattuck, who accompanied last weekend’s airlift, are blogging their observations and the work of fellow AmeriCares employees from the home of a host family who has provided space for the AmeriCares crew.

The house where the AmeriCares team is staying has no electricity or running water. Earlier this week bottled water was available but the food supply was limited to granola bars Bret had thrown into his backpack.

The team was continuing to have wireless access to the Internet, however. Bret has been filing posts since Saturday morning, when he and his team awoke at 7 am, at the airport, “to the roar of Air Force engines; the hum of generators; the pitter patter of reporters and cameramen trying to head out onto the streets before daybreak.” Carol’s blogs began Sunday evening once she, her teammate, and the supplies arrived in Port-au-Prince.

Gas Is Gold

Bret’s blogs have already confirmed rumors that the rest of us have only been hearing, including the scarcity and increasing value of gasoline.

“Gas is gold here,” he posted on Saturday. “The few filling stations that have gas are swarmed with cars and people. Out on the street, it’s selling for $12 a gallon.” AmeriCares was able to rent a car, complete with a full tank of the precious gas, from “one of the only places that had its own, private stock of gas,” Bret also shared.

“We soon collided with the views of crumbled buildings, homes and towers,” his blog continued. “There were houses propped up by plastic chairs. We came across a collapsed home and its [frightened] owner watching as a community of men scoured the debris in search of her husband; his fate tied to so many others here in Haiti.

“Everyone we’ve spoken to seems to have lost a husband, or a cousin, or countless friends. Emotion is hesitant, or unknowing, or just overwhelming. It’s all too much to take in.”

The AmeriCares team has connected with local and international aid groups and various UN entities. It has learned — as so many of us have been reminded regularly on news broadcasts — that Port-au-Prince’s General Hospital is overflowing with patients despite vast structural damage. Overcrowded camps — The International Organization for Migration was reporting that by Wednesday, more than 300 improvised camps were home to approximately 370,000 people in the capital city — need primary health care and basic sanitation, wrote Bret.

“AmeriCares has positioned itself to bring great value to such a challenging situation,” Bret posted. “And with an incoming shipment filled with items expressly needed by potential recipients — antibiotics, pain medicines, gauze, bandages, supplies for wound care, etc — our supply will be met with great demand.”

There are the occasional bright spots that help Bret and the rest of the team remember what they are working for.

“As seems to happen in moments on horror, there have emerged occasions to celebrate,” Bret wrote in one of his postings. “Driving through the streets of Petionville we found a baby girl fresh from her recent rescue. She was buried alive for three days without food and water, and relief workers from a partner organization were nursing her back to health.”

Taking A Step Back

Bret is a 2000 graduate of Newtown High School. He was in the top ten of his class (#4, actually), and planned to go to Brown University that fall. He went to Brown, but ended up taking a leave of absence after his freshman year because “he decided he needed to step back to figure out what he wanted from college,” Jane Raban McEvoy explained.

Bret worked at Newtown Savings Bank as a teller, saving money while doing so. After deciding Brown was not, in fact, the right fit for him, he applied and was accepted into Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. Before heading north, however, he used some of the money he had saved to take a two-month self-funded educational experience in Tibet.

“He found a group that was coincidentally founded by a Bowdoin grad and got a partial scholarship for a six-week program in Tibet,” said Jane. “This opened his world and began his passion for other cultures. He loved the Tibetan people and was impressed/intrigued with how happy they were with so little.”

While studying at Bowdoin Bret spent April 2003 and March 2005 on spring break in Lima, Peru, performing volunteer work in a shantytown. He graduated from Bowdoin in May 2005, with honors, having earned a bachelor’s degree with majors in government and German. He worked for one year as project coordinator for Management Recruiters of Newtown, and by June 2006 had found his way into the world of AmeriCares.

His career with the nonprofit disaster relief and humanitarian aid organization actually began in early 2006 when he volunteered in the fundraising department of the Stamford-based international organization. He was hired that July as an associate in Middle East Partnerships. He was then promoted to senior associate of gift-in-kind process management in January 2008, and moved into his current position this past July.

He volunteered in New Orleans “to help prepare for another hurricane after Katrina,” his mother said this week, and also worked in Galveston, Texas, after a hurricane hit there. The current work in Haiti, however, is his first on the scene emergency response.

According to a January 18 press release issued by AmeriCares — which has been working in Haiti since 1984 and has since that time delivered more than $145 million in aid to the country — Sunday’s airlift was originally scheduled to deliver $5 million worth of antibiotics, pain medicines, and other critically needed relief supplies, “but due to the immense outpouring of donations, another $1 million of aid was added prior to takeoff.”

The organization also airlifted medicines and other supplies into the Dominican Republic on Tuesday, to be trucked into Haiti, as well as for hospitals treating Haitian earthquake survivors crossing the border for treatment.

AmeriCares, the press release continued, has committed $15 million worth of aid, and will be delivering more desperately needed medicines, bottled water, and nutritional supplements in the days, weeks, and months ahead.

Bret’s blog from January 16 shows the frustration and hope that is shared by countless relief workers and survivors alike.

“Now, back in the home of the family that is so graciously hosting our team, I am typing this message by candlelight, my mind filled with images of destruction and cries of despair,” he wrote. “But there’s hope in this calamity. And I’d like to believe that we’re a part of that.”

To follow Bret’s work and the progress of AmeriCares in Haiti, visit AmeriCares.org. Scroll down to where you see the black bar that says More on Haiti… and then click AmeriCares Relief Worker Blog From Haiti.

AmeriCares has a secure online location set up to receive tax-deductible donations that will be used specifically for earthquake relief in Haiti. Visit AmeriCares.org to make a donation, or call 800-486-HELP (4357) for additional information.