PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Crossing the border into Haiti, the first sign horror is near is the over-flowing trucks with exhausted workers — many sitting on roofs, wearing face-masks as they try to make their way to the Dominican Republic.
Then, it is the long wait for gasoline.
Cars, passenger buses, aid vehicles, trucks, Haitians on motorcycles and by foot are all swarming the Shell stations hoping to fill up their empty containers.
Gasoline not only runs the cars but the generators — and it is electricity that few can live without.
Every gas station is the same. Those that are bare are closed.
The buildings away from the capital are mostly in good shape. Many fences surrounding compounds have crumbled, the broken windows of the airport’s control tower are among the first signs disaster hit a concentrated area.
The border crossing into Haiti is chaotic.
Aid vehicles carrying bananas, turnips and lots of water — 18-wheeler trucks holding jugs of the life-saving liquid — line up to cross.
A Salvation Army water tanker would have joined them earlier, if it hadn't received a flat tire.
Border guards speed vehicles through, barely glancing at passports.
UN vehicles, the Red Cross, and busloads of passengers — most appear to be aid workers or volunteers — rush back from the troubled zone.
Canadians Cole Brown, Vaden Earle and Adam Grant are trying to make their way to the Haitian capital. The young men are from Absolute Leadership, an NGO based-in Hamilton that supports an orphanage in Port-au-Prince.
Unable to contact staff that run the centre for the 60-plus children — former street kids, orphaned siblings and those cast aside because of medical needs, they’ve headed down to check for themselves.
“We’re not sure if any one made it out alive,” Brown said.
Althia.raj@sunmedia.ca
