'A desperate situation': Suburban groups responding to devastation in Haiti

As the death toll climbs in the wake of a 7.2-magnitude earthquake that rocked Haiti on Saturday, local and national nonprofit groups here in the suburbs are describing a desperate situation and assessing what they can do to help.

Nearly 1,300 people were known to have died as of Monday afternoon, a number likely to grow substantially since the main road to Les Cayes, a large city near the epicenter on Haiti's southern coast, is still unpassable because of landslides. To make matters worse, the country is in the crosshairs of a tropical storm.

Matthew Soerens of Aurora, U.S. director of Church Mobilization for World Relief, said colleagues on the ground in Les Cayes describe a "chaotic" scene.

"We're still learning a lot about the situation, but from what I'm told, it's just total devastation," Soerens said. "Buildings collapsed, homes collapsed, hospitals are overwhelmed, just a desperate situation for a people who have gone through a terrible year."

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the impoverished nation has also dealt with political upheaval after the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse on July 7.

"And they never fully recovered from the 2010 earthquake," Soerens said of the 7.0-magnitude quake that resulted in 220,000 deaths.

Soerens worries that because this is Haiti's second major earthquake in just over a decade, coupled with the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, Haiti won't get the attention it needs.

"There's a risk of 'compassion fatigue,'" he said. "People don't want to think about the human suffering that this is leading to again."

Soerens said World Relief, a global Christian humanitarian organization that works with local churches to provide help in times of crisis, is assessing where the need is greatest.

"Initially we're looking at the typical disaster response of providing medical and hygiene supplies, staff, food, drinking water, tents and blankets," he said. "It will probably be weeks or months before we know what it will really take to rebuild the community."

In Peoria, Nathan Ruby, executive director of Friends of the Children of Haiti, said he's hearing much the same.

The group operates a medical clinic outside Jacmel on the country's southern coast, about an hour and a half east of the epicenter. Their building didn't suffer any damage, and all of the group's 45 staff members and their families were unhurt.

"It's an overwhelming situation," Ruby said of Les Cayes. "From what we're hearing, there's just an astounding amount of damage."

Ruby said Haiti lacks the infrastructure to quickly respond to the crisis.

"The equipment to move concrete, the search and rescue, the dump trucks, the backhoes, Haiti just doesn't have those things," he said. "So it's much more difficult and a much slower process than it would be here."

Ruby said the nonprofit has provided essential and sustained medical care and health education to Haitians since the 1980s, and about half of its medical staff was working there during the 2010 earthquake.

"That earthquake was easier for us to react to because it was right in our lap," he said.

"Now, being an hour and half away, we're trying to determine how best to enter an area where there's not going to be enough medicine, not going to be enough supplies or any of the things you need to do work," he said.

Their first response will be to try to help supply food, water and tents.

"Haitian people are very afraid when the ground shakes, and the first thing they do is run outside," Ruby said. With all the aftershocks, "there's nobody in southern Haiti in their homes right now. Everybody is outside. There's millions of people that have slept outside since Saturday."

The group has a stockpile of clean water filters they'll take over first, then figure out what they can do next, he said.

As they develop plans for their groups to help, both men said people here who want to help can best do so by donating money.

"It's a really urgent moment, and frankly the most efficient way to help is financial donations because we can very quickly get that help to our partners on the ground in Haiti," Soerens said.

Donations can be made to either organization on their websites, worldrelief.org or fotcoh.org.