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Tuesday, March 19, 2024
March 19, 2024

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Local residents mobilize to give their help in Haiti

Some already there; others packing suitcases

By , Columbian Science, Military & History Reporter
Published:
4 Photos
Chris and Leslie Rolling with daughter Olivia in November.
Chris and Leslie Rolling with daughter Olivia in November. Photo Gallery

Just after Tuesday’s massive earthquake rocked Haiti, Vancouver native Chris Rolling was digging through the ruins of a collapsed school in Port-au-Prince, helping a girl out of the rubble.

Rolling is the executive director of a nonprofit agency in Haiti. He and his wife, Leslie, and their daughter, Olivia, live about an hour from Port-au-Prince, the nation’s capital.

Within a few hours of the quake, Clark County volunteers were mobilizing to help the devastated Caribbean nation. Vancouver residents Dr. Joe and Linda Markee are former residents of Haiti and still have strong ties there.

While the Markees have never worked in the aftermath of an earthquake, “we’ve been in trauma situations,” Joe said.

Organizations with local ties working to improve life in Haiti:

o www.haitifoundationofhope.org

o www.medicalteams.org (800-959-4325)

o www.forwardedge.org/ (360-574-3343)

o www.cleanwaterforhaiti.org

“You hear people screaming. They’re in pain, yes, but it’s also fear,” he said. “‘Where will I get help?’”

The Markees and former Camas resident Anne Blaufus are leaving today to provide help.

In leading Medical Teams International’s Haitian quake-relief effort, they’re scheduled to fly out of Portland at 12:30 p.m.

It’s a familiar partnership. Joe Markee, a retired physician, and Linda, a registered nurse, have led several medical missions to Haiti for Medical Teams International.

Blaufus, a nurse at Providence Portland Medical Center who now lives in Oregon, has worked with the Markees in Haiti on assignments for Portland-based Medical Teams International.

Joe started doing volunteer work there in 1983, and the Markees lived in Haiti from 1997-99 when he was a member of a hospital staff.

The Markees also have established a nonprofit organization — Haiti Foundation of Hope — to assist the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere.

“The Markees were already scheduled to go to Haiti in February,” said Marlene Minor, vice president of communications for Medical Teams International. “Now they’re leaving as soon as they can.”

Vancouver-based Forward Edge International is gearing up a two-stage earthquake response. The agency is organizing a volunteer team of medical professionals to travel to Haiti in the next few days. They will provide immediate medical help. In a couple of weeks, Forward Edge will send two representatives to Haiti to set up long-term relief efforts with local partners.

But for the Rollings, earthquake response was a matter of waiting for the shaking to stop. In a series of postings on a family blog, Leslie Rolling described how her husband was in Port-au-Prince when the quake started.

“Buildings all around him were down, including a school full of teenage girls,” she wrote. “He was able to get one girl out.”

Organizations with local ties working to improve life in Haiti:

o www.haitifoundationofhope.org

o www.medicalteams.org (800-959-4325)

o www.forwardedge.org/ (360-574-3343)

o www.cleanwaterforhaiti.org

In a Wednesday update, she wrote: “Chris was really shaken when he got home, and understandably. After he was able to help the first girl out of the building yesterday he went deeper in and found another girl. He did everything he could with what he had in the limited light and couldn’t get her out. He knew her name and had to walk away. There was no one around to help him and aftershocks were hitting. … It breaks my heart.”

Then on Wednesday, Chris Rolling and workers from his aid organization, Clean Water for Haiti, grabbed some tools. Along with a friend and two missionaries, they climbed into two trucks and drove back to the capital to help wherever they could.

The more news they hear, the worse things get, Leslie Rolling added: “To see pictures of the grocery store where we shopped flattened or to see pictures of the National Palace destroyed are shocking.”

That’s the scene awaiting the Markees.

“We lived there, and we recognized so many of those buildings” damaged by the quake, Linda Markee said Wednesday afternoon.

The Markees’ group will do a quick assessment so Medical Teams International can decide what type of assistance to send, and where it can be based.

Forward Edge International will be setting the stage for volunteer teams that can travel to Haiti over the next year, said Bob Craddock, director of mission teams.

Craddock and another staff member had already bought tickets for a Jan. 27 flight to Haiti, where the agency was planning to establish a new aid project.

Now, after the quake, “it will look a little different,” he said.

Rather than acting as a first-response agency, Forward Edge is based on long-term rebuilding projects, Craddock said.

More than four years after Hurricane Katrina, he said, “We’re still in the Gulf Coast.”

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Columbian Science, Military & History Reporter