 "Photo: Wes Lauer")
A Seattle University professor was in Haiti the day the earthquake hit. But luckily for him, his experience was very different from what one might expect.
Wes Lauer traveled to Haiti Jan. 8 in support of a senior project through the Project Center of the College of Science and Engineering. He stayed in the northwest region of Haiti and was originally scheduled to leave Jan. 15 but was delayed a week because of the earthquake.
Katherine Kuder, civil engineering professor, took over one of Lauer’s classes during his absence.
“The students were concerned. We were all concerned,” she said. “We didn’t have a lot of information, but we tried to tell the students that we’d spoken to his wife, and he was OK and was coming back. But we didn’t know how long it would be.”
When the quake hit Jan. 12, Lauer was staying at the home of Bruce Robinson—another member of the program—an hour away from Port-de-Paix. He was working with 12 volunteers from the University Presbyterian Church in Seattle. Lauer and the others didn’t know of the quake’s intensity until he was informed via the Internet about the damage in Port-au-Prince.
“We were actually reviewing hydraulics when the earthquake hit,” Lauer said. “It was a noticeable earthquake and lasted maybe 10 seconds. It was sort of rolling; it wasn’t sharp the way people in Port-au-Prince described it.”
However, Lauer and the others in the house had no idea what they had just experienced. There wasn’t any damage to the house other than a few glasses that shifted in cabinets.
Though there wasn’t any damage to the area around Lauer, the earthquake posed other struggles outside Port-au-Prince.
“We didn’t know that it was going to be a large disaster at the time,” Lauer said. “This part of northwest Haiti has had earthquakes in the past of magnitude four or five. You feel them, but they don’t break anything, and we thought that was what was happening.”
One of the obstacles Lauer faced was paralyzed air travel in Port-au-Prince and Cap-Haitien. It took two attempts to get a flight to the U.S. before Lauer and the group from University Presbyterian Church were able to fly out of Haiti.
“I never saw any of the disaster you saw on TV,” Lauer said. “So the most powerful part of my experience probably had to do with the way we saw people in that area dealing with the problems.”
Phillip Thompson, civil engineering chair, kept in touch with both Lauer and his wife during Lauer’s trip. He exchanged about four or five e-mails with Lauer and talked to his wife every day or two.
Lauer was able to send an e-mail to his wife less than a day after the earthquake struck.
“There was concern by several students who stopped by my office to inquire about his safety,” Thompson said. “I was able to notify all of our students that Dr. Lauer was safe within a few hours of the quake.”
Lauer returned safely to Seattle and resumed teaching Jan. 21.
Kate may be reached at kganiron@su-spectator.com.
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