Cameron Davidson

Downtown Jacmel. The San Francisco earthquake in 1989 was similar in scale and strength to the Haitian Earthquake in early January. Sixty-three people died in the San Francisco quake and over a hundred-thousand perished in southern Haiti. Why? Buildings in California are designed to withstand earthquakes and are built to strict codes. Haiti’s constant poverty means stretching your funds as far as possible. Their is very little oversight during construction and minimal building codes or inspectors to enforce them. Many of Haiti’s buildings pancaked because the concrete was stretched with too much sand. A concrete block in North America on average weighs eight times more than a standard Haitian building block. When the quake hit, the stressed concrete disintegrated.

Dr. Swati Agarwal, an Pediatric Critical Care physician for Inova Fairfax attending a young man who was beaten severely and left for dead on a Jacmel beach. He was carried into the courtyard and left on a stretcher. I found him and a young interpreter named Elvis summoned Larry Walker from Inova and another physician to carry him onto our makeshift tables, a collection of desks set-up in the courtyard underneath blue tarps to ward off the sun. The young man was severely dehydrated and suffered from multiple injuries.

Mass confusion reigns near the entrance to Hospital Saint Michelle in Jacmel. Bill Allard once said to find the place and wait for the moment. I sat on the steps of a church overlooking the entrance to the hospital and into a courtyard that swelled with doctors from CCH, plus Haitian-American nurses from New York City, a Cuban medical team and a group from Delaware. I shot a few frames and waited. I was looking for the moment when disorganization and chaos presented itself. Everyone was trying so hard: we were short on supplies, not enough time, hundreds of patients were lying in beds underneath makeshift tents and it all came together in a flurry that passed by in a few seconds.

The Washington Post embedded reporter Susie Kenzie with the first CCH team to enter Jacmel. They flew to Santa Domingo in the Dominican Republic and drove from the DR to Pignon, Haiti and then flew into Jacmel. Her video was published on the Washington Post website.

An intense week of shooting along the southern coast of Haiti. I have barely touched the edit since arriving home late last night. The day began with a trip to the Canadian airfield in Jacmel and an MAF flight to Port au Prince. The helo schedule did not mesh up so I ended up spending the day on the Touissant Airport tarmac photographing cargo jets unloading and Americans trying to get home. At four-thirty I got on board a private jet headed to Ft. Lauderdale. We ran late and a few members of our team missed flights.

The first image was shot in downtown Jacmel. The second is in the courtyard which became the Community Coalition for Haiti primary care center.

More to come but I am exhausted. We spent a week tenting in a convent without a solid nights sleep and no food yesterday with little water. I am kinda wiped out.

My love for Haiti started with my first trip in 1999. I’ve shot primarily for the Community Coalition for Haiti, a faith-based 501(c)3 NGO whose primary focus is working with and supporting a small hospital and several medical clinics in the North Central Plateau. I have been a member of the board since 2002. Last March was my tenth visit to Haiti and my first to the Southwestern peninsula.

Right now, we are trying to get several groups of surgeons into Port Au Prince and Jacmel. Today, I am working on arranging helicopter transport from the Dominican Republic for them.

This morning, CCH ran an ad in the Washington Post about our restricted fund that 100% of the money goes directly toward the earthquake relief effort. One obstacle is the staggering cost of flying in the surgeons and gear from Santa Domingo in the Dominican Republic into Haiti.

If you are interested in contributing to the transportation efforts for our group, please visit our web site, CCHaiti.org

Air Calvary is a 501(c)3 New York based aviation group that helps transport Doctors and teams into crisis areas. They are good guys and are helping many groups with transport from the Dominican Republic into Haiti. The need contributions to help defray the costs of flights from the DR into Port Au Prince. At the moment, there are four secure landing zones in Port Au Prince. To contribute to Air Calvary’s efforts, please go to their site, AirCalvary.org.

I shot this image of the young boy was shot in a school in Central Haiti. This morning, the first appeal for contributions ran in the Washington Post Metro section.

Port-au-Prince to Les Cayes – Route 200.

Think of the most horrific Deliverance style east Kentucky slash Southern West Virginia mountain top dirt road strewn with broken down trucks and crashed tap-tap buses and you are about halfway there. Now add some of the chaos of the second Mad Max movie with Humongous driving and you are there.

Trip to Las Cayes took close to six hours. Huge detour over washed out bridges from the hurricanes that carried us over a mountain range denuded of trees. We arrived in Las Cayes fairly late where the kitchen at the Les Cayes Hotel prepared us a delicious meal of plantains, rice, beans and a choice of meat.

Here are a few images from the road trip.

I flew back from Port-au-Prince early this morning.

A week on the roads of Haiti is an experience. I will post more images over the weekend with stories behind them.

The NGO that I am on the board of has made an investment in a Haitian-American export company. I shot everything from hot peppers growing to portraits in tiny sugar cane mills in the north. The roads can be a challenge. They are pot-holed, lacking in signage, washed-out, by-passed and filled with broken down trucks and overflowing tap-taps – the wonderful Haitian public transport vehicle.

More to come over the weekend.

I am adding a section to my AerialStock.com site for prints. The profits from the sale of these images will go to the – Community Coalition for Haiti, an NGO that I’ve shot for since 1999 and am a member of the board of directors. The views include low-level and close-in of the Capitol and Supreme Court in the now prohibited DC flight zone, New York City, The Chesapeake Bay Watershed, the American West, New Zealand and the Everglades.

The money will be used in two ways: to purchase seeds for farmers who lost their crops last fall when Haiti was walloped by three hurricanes in a row and for a feeding program for a small orphanage in the Central Highlands. A member of our board developed an intense feeding program that is working wonders with malnourished infants. One-hundred percent of the profits will be used in Haiti.

Please share this gallery with others or embed the code into your blog or web site.

To order a print: Please go to AerialStock.com and choose an image. Ordering prints is easy and seamless.
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