Chapter 3: Disaster

Monday at just after noon, Jonas and Henri were returning from Port-au-Prince where they had picked up a contracted-for shipment of second-hand auto parts from a broker. They were riding in Henri’s truck and heading back to the shop to unload and then go on to Aubry, where he intended to drop off Jonas at his home. Jonas had gotten the D.R. E-Ticket and planned to bring his family over the border to safety on Tuesday morning. Henri was at the wheel and they were close to Henri’s shop and home, about ten minutes away from Jonas’ home, when the truck lurched wildly. Henri twisted the wheel to keep the truck on the road.

“Mèd! What was that?” he shouted.

The truck lurched again and he stopped while some shaking continued. “Earthquake!” he yelled at Jonas.

They could both see nearby structures collapsing and clouds of dust rising into the air; then the ground settled.

Henri stepped on the gas and raced on to his shop. Jonas looked around as they drove into the driveway; he didn’t see much damage here and Henri’s shop building appeared as if it hadn’t been damaged. Henri stopped in front of the shop as his wife, Julianna, was running out of it.

“Henri, the shop and house are mostly okay and so are our sons’ houses,” she called.

One of Henri’s sons yelled to them, “Papa, the shop’s good. Some things fell down, but nothing major! Everyone’s outdoors now!”

There was a brief shaking again.

“Damn, we need to get to Aubry and my wife and kid!” Jonas shouted.

“We’ll leave the truck! Get in the shop van!” Henri called and they raced to get into the van.

Henri drove there as fast as he could. They pulled into the courtyard of the ounfò. The small block building had mostly collapsed, and the little house next to it was also heavily damaged. Smoke and flames were coming out of one side of the ounfò. A small figure lay on the ground just outside the ounfò’s doorway. They saw that it was Fabienne and she wasn’t moving. Jonas rushed over to her. Part of the door frame lay next to her and she had a gash in her scalp, oozing blood, but she was breathing.

“Henri, we shouldn’t move her without supporting her back,” Jonas said, his thoughts reverting back to his combat training. “Her breathing is strong. The bleeding’s mostly stopped. See if there’s a board or plank we can use. But I need to find Cassandra. There’s a fire somewhere in the ounfò, so I better check there first.”

Jonas leaned into the collapsed doorway in the ounfò and could hear faint cries for help, but fallen, twisted roof panels were blocking the way into the structure. Jonas noticed the window at the back corner of the building had been partially broken out, and the wall there was still standing. He hurried over to it and leaned through it into the structure.

“There’s a fire inside and I hear Cassandra crying in there!” he shouted to Henri.

Henri rushed over to him with a pair of leather gloves. “Here, take these gloves! They’ll help if there’s more broken glass inside—also protect your hands against the fire!”

With a broken chunk of concrete, Jonas knocked out the remaining window glass and the wooden frame and climbed through the opening. He took off his shirt and wrapped it around his face to try to keep the smoke from choking him. Keeping low, below the smoke, he felt his way to the sounds of Cassandra’s crying. As he reached her, he could sense that the flames were coming close to her legs. Feeling around her legs, he found a wooden beam lying across them. With a mighty tug, he lifted the end of the beam pinning her leg, propping it up on an overturned chair, and then was able to pull her away from the spreading flames.

He could see that most of the fire’s smoke was pouring out of holes in the metal roof, which the quake had twisted and ripped apart. Then, through the haze of the smoke, he could dimly see a figure lying under the middle of the beam he had lifted; he saw that it was Robert, the member of Cassandra’s congregation who had agreed to watch her while Jonas was away. The fallen beam had crushed his chest. Jonas leaned over the body and felt for a pulse in the neck; it was clear that Robert wasn’t alive. Keeping low and dragging a wailing Cassandra behind him, he scuttled back to the window and shouted for Henri. Then he looked at his wife, checking her for any bleeding.

“Cass, I’ve got you now; you’ll be safe. Can you tell me where you’re hurt? Can you move your legs?”

She whimpered, “Oh Jonas, it was awful. I hurt all over, my legs burn. I can move them but I think the left one must be broken. Oh mon Dieu, where’s Fabienne?”

“We’ve got her. She’s knocked out but seems okay otherwise. Hey, I’ll need to get you through the window here, so this’ll hurt some, but then we’ll be safe.”

Then Jonas noticed a folding table near the window.

“Here’s a little table. I’ll get you on the top and we’ll slide you out the window,” he told her.

He shouted for Henri while he folded up the table’s legs. Henri climbed through the window and together, they carefully slid the table under Cassandra and hoisted it onto the window sill. After some twisting around, Henri had enough room to slip past her to get outside and the two of them were able to slide the table the rest of the way out. They carried the makeshift stretcher/backboard over to the van and slid it into the rear door. The ground shook with another aftershock and a little more of the two ruined buildings settled. By now the fire had enveloped one entire side of the ounfò, but since most of its outer walls were concrete block, there wasn’t much more structure left to burn.

Henri had found a narrow door lying on the ground near the Bernards’ house; it had broken out of its frame when the wall that it was in had fallen. Together, they slid the door under Fabienne and pushed it into the van next to Cassandra.

“Check them, Henri—see if there’s bleeding. I need to see if I can get any of my stuff,” Jonas said. “I got some emergency gear. It’s in the bedroom over there and the wall there looks intact.”

“Be careful, my friend. There could be another shock.”

“Right.”

Jonas broke out the window in the wall and slid in. He quickly located the strongbox he kept under the bed and then pulled a backpack and duffel bag out of a wardrobe. He found Cassandra’s handbag and then recalled that she kept her personal documents in a wooden desk in the ounfò; surely by now, the fire had burnt everything in that building. Stuffing what he could find of importance into the duffle, and grabbing his backpack “bugout bag,” he clambered back out of the window and looked around. There was devastation everywhere; the walls of his home had virtually collapsed and the ounfò, built mostly of concrete blocks, was a smoking, almost leveled ruin. His little truck had been crushed by a fallen wall. Almost eleven years of building a new life here were gone.

Maybe this is a blessing, in a way, he mused. Maybe we can disappear now and get away from Vanessa.

He ran back to the van and checked on his family. Cassandra was moaning in pain but Fabienne appeared awake now but she was very groggy. Jonas dug through his backpack and pulled out a bottle of oxycodone, took a bottle of water from his pack, and gave Cassandra two capsules. Henri looked a question at him.

“It’s something I learned to do in the Marines. This is my ‘bugout bag.’ I keep emergency supplies in it if I have to go somewhere quick with no notice. Let’s see if we can find medical care.”

“There’s nothing but the two clinics along Route 1 near here, you know,” Henri said. “They can’t treat injuries like these. We’d have better luck in Port-au-Prince. Let’s hope that they’re not jammed—fat chance that’s not happening, anyway. I’ll pick up Julianna at home on the way; she knows a bit about nursing.”

They stopped at Henri’s home and Julianna ran over.

As she got into the van, she told Henri, “We’re pretty much okay. A lot of things fell over, fell off the walls, there’s some broken dishes too, and Emanuel said there wasn’t much damage to the boys’ houses or shop. I was outside when the shaking began, so nothing falling hit me, but Maureen hurt her arm when a shelf fell on it as she ran out of the house. She’s okay, it’s just a big bruise. Our grandkids were playing outside so they were safe. Let me look at Cassandra and Fabienne.”

She checked on them. Cassandra was sleeping fitfully; the medicine had knocked her out. Fabienne was complaining softly that her head hurt really badly.

“There’s a number of hospitals in the Morne a Tuff and Bois Verna neighborhoods in Port-au-Prince,” Julianna suggested. “Maybe we can get help there.”

Before any more time passed, though, Jonas knew he had to take care of Cassandra’s burns and immobilize her broken leg. Recalling his Marine training and remembering the aid he had seen his corpsman perform on men wounded by IEDs, he took what Julianna could give him to treat the burns and improvised some temporary dressings. He even had a few packets of antiseptic powder in his bugout bag.

Then, it was a stressful and hectic drive getting into the city. The roads were clogged with people and vehicles and, in places, filled with rubble from damaged structures. They had to find gas for the van as well, some food too. There were places where the roads were impassible; they were so blocked that they had to wait until they were cleared, or backtrack if clearing them wasn’t possible. It was about twelve hours after the quake that a weary Jonas and his companions arrived at the closest hospital, close to dawn, only to find that it was jammed with people seeking care. Jonas fed Cassandra another pain capsule and got her to eat a piece of a veggie wrap and an energy bar and take some water. Julianna was helping Fabienne with eating a little. Jonas went to see how long it would be to get care when he heard from a policeman that a field hospital was being set up near the port.