Haiti Deployment Diary: Day 2, Tuesday 19th January

The old saying, familiar in military circles, 'hurry up and wait' is so often true in emergency relief work, too. This morning we gathered for our team briefing at 8.30am in our Fort Laudedale hotel to be told to be ready with bags packed at 1.30pm. The plan was that we would drive to Miami and then join a charter flight to take us to Haiti. By late morning word reached us that the flight was cancelled and our rooms at the hotel were rebooked for another night.

When you have a team of relief workers who have quickly gathered possessions and their emergency kit and left home and families at a days’ notice to head for a disaster zone, news that you are spending another day in a hotel is not what you want to hear.

But things are very fluid just now both in the field and as far as logistic are concerned. At 2pm a frantic call came round - a flight had been fixed and we could get 5 of the team out today. Word was ‘you have to be at the airport in 10 minutes’. So a very quick dash saw the 5 selected team members at the small civilian airfield having cases weighed to see if the 8 seater plane could carry us and all our kit. We had 200 pounds free weight to spare so enough room to add some tents and medical supplies ready for a 4.30pm departure.

The 5 chosen included 2 doctors, a Haitian Salvation Army officer now stationed in the USA, a retired but experienced disaster responder - and me!

The small plane has already made 5 round trips to Haiti in the last few days. The pilot, a local Salvationist, knows the score well now. His plan was to get us to the Turks and Caicos islands for refuelling and then onto Haiti to make the agreed landing slot at 10.45pm.

The team headed out with an air of nervous anticipation at what lay ahead, mixed with relief to be actually on the way. Our colleagues left behind will join us over the next couple of days but we carry their prayers and best wishes.

After 3 and a half hours we made the refuelling stop (both for the plane and us) and then a further hour and a half found us landing in Port au Prince to be met on the tarmac by colleagues in 2 cars to take us to our accommodation. Well – we’re here! It was pitch black on arrival and we collapsed straight into bed – so I’ll post more tomorrow when I am up to speed with our relief programme and the news about the community.