In Haiti, Many Buildings Left Standing Shouldn't Be

STEVE INSKEEP, host:

Its MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Im Steve Inskeep.

RENEE MONTAGNE, host:

And Im Renee Montagne. And well spend the next few minutes getting an update on Haiti. Beyond the thousands of buildings collapsed into a heaps of dust and rubble when the earthquake hit, thousands more are still standing many of those, though, are so damaged they shouldn't be occupied.

American engineers are now going through some of those buildings, assessing damage and often telling those inside to find another place to live or to work. It's a bitter piece of news to absorb and it demonstrates the challenges Haitians face as they try to put their lives back together. NPRs Juan Forero reports from Port-au-Prince.

JUAN FORERO: At the Mixed Assembly of God, a school and church, elderly congregants raise their arms to the sky and sing for a better day.

(Soundbite of singing)

FORERO: Their evangelical church still stands. So do the cinderblock additions that housed classrooms for neighborhood children. But fallen walls, and egg-shell cracks across those still standing, foretell trouble: perhaps a complete collapse with a strong tremor.

Ms. DARLENE CLOVIS (Mechanical Engineer): For us in America, thats a red. Don't go in.

FORERO: Thats Darlene Clovis, a Haitian-American, Creole-speaking mechanical engineer from New Jersey. She volunteered to assess damage, and she says an annex that serves as a classroom is so seriously damaged that she won't step inside even as Pastor Celestin Jean Robert urged her to.

Ms. CLOVIS: I said no, I'm not going in.

FORERO: The 28-year-old normally works for the Department of Defense. And on this day, she and Craig Totten, a 39-year-old structural engineer from Seattle-based KPFF are going from school to school.

(Soundbite of knocking)

FORERO: As they chip at a wall, Totten says they're examining the integrity of the cinderblocks.

Mr. CRAIG TOTTEN (Structural Engineer): Mainly this type of construction is masonry, unreinforced masonry blocks with concrete columns and floors. So really what we're looking to see is what kind of damage has occurred in the masonry to see if it's decreased the capacity of the building to resist a big aftershock.

FORERO: So far, the outlook is not good. U.N. officials say perhaps 20 percent of the city's structures collapsed. And perhaps 80 percent of those still standing suffered serious damage.

Mr. TOTTEN: Its a shocking number, isn't it? It's going to take a decade for this city to recover.

FORERO: The results from their surveys, and those from other teams of volunteer engineers, will go to the Haitian government. Its up to Haitian inspectors to then condemn buildings or give the green light for their use.

Totten says that what he and Clovis have seen, in building after building, is soft mortar, poorly mixed concrete, rickety columns. The cinderblocks are made from material so grainy that it peels away with your fingernails. No wonder some of the buildings that collapsed looked like they'd been pulverized by some huge hammer, Totten says.

Mr. TOTTEN: The magnitude seven earthquake, the shaking they actually got, the ground accelerations they had here, were not that severe. I mean there was a lot of damage here, but if it had been closer to the city, if it had been shallower, I think there would've been a lot more buildings down than what we've actually seen.

(Soundbite of rooster crowing)

FORERO: At the Community Evangelical School, in a densely packed neighborhood, roosters crow, but the kids arent back in the three-story building. And Francillon Eliacin, the principal, has been told that the third floor needs big repairs. Hes not surprised.

Mr. FRANCILLON ELIACIN (Principal, Community Evangelical School): Maybe they didn't take care about when they were doing the construction. They didn't do it according to a rule. That's what we do in Haiti all the time. We just build, but we don't really take care about what we're doing.

FORERO: That lack of attention to details could have brought down another school, the Les Freres Saint Cyr School.

Ms. CLOVIS: (Foreign language spoken)

FORERO: It's still standing, but Darlene Clovis tells the principal, Marc Sincere, that it needs big repairs.

Ms. CLOVIS: (Foreign language spoken)

FORERO: She tells the principal it may not look bad, but it really is. And she says that until the repairs are made, no one should be inside.

Juan Forero, NPR News, Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.