The Big Truck That Went By: How the World Came to Save Haiti and Left Behind a Disaster

After a two-and-a-half-year stint for the Associated Press (AP) in Haiti, Katz awaits a transfer. That's when the 2010 earthquake hits. The rocking of the house was like "an airplane in a storm" (14), he reports. Despite massive damage, the floor holds, and Katz and Evens Sanon make their way through the dust and crumbling walls to the courtyard outside.

When Katz transferred to Haiti from the Dominican Republic two years prior, he met Evens, a "combination tour guide, driver, translator, interview arranger, culture explainer, and bodyguard" (15). His personality and 6'5", 300 pound physique (6'5", 300 pounds) make Evens "born for the roll" (16), according to Katz. Surveying the rows of houses beyond the courtyard, Katz and Evens see little but clouds of dust. A collective wailing fills the air. "Thousands of people are dead" (18), Evens tells him. Katz calls the AP Caribbean bureau to report the earthquake.

An hour later, Katz, Evens, and Wilder, a mechanic, drive down the steep mountain roads from Pétionville to the capital, Port-au-Prince, fighting stalled traffic most of the way. Evens tries to reach the neighborhood of Juvenat where his one-year-old son lives. His ex-wife and son both survive, he learns. In a bid for reliable phone and Internet service, they head for the U.S. Embassy.

Choking on dust and traumatized by the destruction and carnage, Katz panics, but Evens calmly hands him water and tells him to "chill." Katz marvels at his fixer's composed demeanor during this crisis and many others. Upon learning that some of his family are injured, Evens takes a detour. He finds three members of his family dead; a remaining member, "Fat Boy," is injured. Evens wants to take Fat Boy to his mother's house, but Katz objects, eager to get to the embassy and file reports. Ultimately, Evens agrees. On the way, they pass a collapsed apartment building and stop to assist the rescue effort. Unable to move the rubble by hand, Katz uses the flash from his camera to illuminate the darkness beneath the rubble. In the process, he photographs a hand protruding from the wreckage. Examining the photo later, Katz realizes the man in the photo was still alive and wonders if they could they have saved the man's life.

Katz notes that in the 1990s, as many Haitians migrated to urban centers, hastily constructed buildings rose up to meet the demand. With little oversight and lax building codes, the cities were primed for this kind of disaster. To make matters worse, in the 24 hours after the initial quake, the U.S. Geological Survey reported "fifty-four aftershocks greater than 4.0" (27).

After finding Evens's mother alive, Katz and Evens reach the center of Port-au-Prince on the national mall of Champ de Mars, the site of the presidential mansion. They discover the building has largely collapsed. As they try to reach the embassy, their path is blocked by heavy traffic near the United Nations military hospital. Hordes of people carrying injured family members attempt to reach the hospital, but Jordanian soldiers, block access in an effort to contain the chaos. They ultimately allow Katz and Evens through when they inform the soldiers of their destination.

Upon reaching the embassy, Katz speaks with Jerry Oetgen, counselor for public affairs, but he has no information about dead or injured Americans. Exhausted and hungry, Katz requests food and access to the embassy's Internet; Oetgen denies the request, citing "security protocols." Later, however, Katz is allowed inside and given rations, but Evens must sleep outside in the security guard shack. Katz opts to stay outside with his fixer.

Katz devotes Chapter 2 to Haiti's history, beginning with its geological formation along a major fault line. The tectonic forces which created the island of Hispaniola also pushed up a series of mountains at the foot of which Port-au-Prince was eventually built. First inhabited by indigenous people known as the Taíno, Hispaniola was among the islands where Christopher Columbus landed during his 1492 voyage. Columbus enslaved the Taíno and forced them to mine for gold. Centuries later, European colonial powers fought over the territory, and, in 1697, Hispaniola was divided: Spain controlled the eastern half, now known as the Dominican Republic, while France controlled the west, now known as Haiti. In the mid-18th century, Europeans discovered the island's rich bounty of sugarcane and coffee, and they imported African slaves to work the plantations. Soon, the island becomes "the French empire's greatest engine of wealth" (36), according to Katz. Seeking a safer haven from pirates who looted the island's exports, the French established Port-au-Prince, a southern port shielded by high mountains on its eastern flank.

In 1791, the slaves rebelled. After a thirteen year conflict, they finally liberated the nation and drove out the French. Newly independent, the former slaves, whose language had evolved into "a mixture of French and those other [African] languages into a new vernacular called Kreyòl" (38) named the new nation Haiti.

Throughout Haiti's history, earthquakes were a regular occurrence on the island, but damage and death were relatively minor because most residents lived in the countryside. Haiti's status as a liberated slave state, however, began a cycle of distrust and foreign interference that plagued the nation well into the 21st century. In 1915, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, seeing political instability as a threat to American business interests, sent Marines to Haiti to quell a populist uprising. Within a month, the U.S. "took control of Haiti's finances, security, and government" (39), writes Katz. The United States occupied Haiti for 19 years, a period of repression, forced labor, and "the debasement of Haiti's political institutions" (41), according to Katz. The U.S. concentrated economic and political power in the capital, and although the U.S. forces left the island in 1934, the legacy of American-backed, centralized authority remained.

The cycle of political turmoil continued in the post-World War II era. The economic boom Haiti experienced in the 1950s rests on a shaky foundation. Declining commodity prices, deforestation, and the decades-long, corrupt rule of the Duvaliers—Francois and his son, Jean-Claude—devastated the island nation. Jean-Claude Duvalier, promising economic revitalization, offered cheap labor and tax incentives to American companies who gladly relocated their manufacturing plants there; but the incentives created little tax revenue for the government which operated huge budget deficits. With the economy in tatters, mobs took to the streets and Duvalier fled to France in 1986.

In 1990, former priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide was elected president on a populist platform, but a coalition of military and business interests ousted him. U.S. President Bill Clinton imposed an embargo and reinstated Aristide but with conditions. Consenting to these conditions, Aristide began a ruinous cycle of importing cheap American agriculture which forced local farmers out of business; they moved into urban centers and became consumers rather than producers which required further imports and more farm closures as the cycle continued. Years of embargoes, American interference, and unstable governments drove Haiti to the brink of economic ruin. By 2008, Port-au-Prince was so overcrowded, the government could not adequately manage the burden. Slums, built with substandard materials, had nowhere to spread but up the sides of the nearby mountains, setting the stage for what Katz refers to as "catastrophic disaster" (52).

The morning after the quake, Katz and Evens pack up their rations and go to work. They catch bits of news: most governmental ministries, including Finance, Communications, and Education, have "returned to their foundations" (54). Driving through the city, Katz and Evens get a sense of the scale of the destruction. In addition to the massive piles of rubble and twisted rebar, bodies litter the streets. Some people frantically look for survivors while others wander silently in shock.

Katz notes that an earthquake, unlike other natural disasters, is an equal opportunity killer. It has no regard for income or class. Social stratification, he argues, is divided into blans and nègs, complex terms that defy easy classification. Blan might imply "foreigner" or "light-skinned Haitian," but mostly it suggests privilege. Nèg, on the other hand, simply means "people," referring primarily to the average, mostly dark-skinned Haitian. The terms arguably define "the cardinal division of Haitian society" (56), writes Katz. This division, he suggests, is the principle reason that so much well-intentioned foreign aid fails to take root. Relief workers are saddled with many unconscious assumptions. They see the country and its people through a "Blan Bubble," their actions reflecting a paternalistic view of "the irredeemable other that was Haiti" (57).

During the night, President Préval tours the damaged city on a motorcycle. The Presidential mansion and the Parliament building are both destroyed, and Préval watches as senators are pulled—some alive, some dead—from the rubble. By daybreak, Préval goes into hiding. Keeping a low profile is the President's survival strategy.

Katz then recounts the story of the Chery family. Forced by economic conditions into a slum inhabited by gangs and drug addicts, daughter Rosemide, age 26, contemplates her future. School is unaffordable, and one of her few career options, the police force, doesn't pay a large enough salary on which to live. Her younger brother, Wismy —nicknamed "Twenty"—is a wannabe rapper. He escapes the collapse of his girlfriend's house and wanders the city looking for his family. Eventually, Rosemide, Twenty, and their brothers, Billy and Benjy, reunite with their parents. They leave the city for an open field of makeshift tents near the airport.

Katz and Evens separate, and the journalist encounters Patrick, a Clinton political appointee. Discussing mutual friends, Patrick tells him that Jan, a colleague, was killed in the collapse of a former hotel that had been occupied by the U.N. Katz reaches the Dominican embassy and manages to send an email to his editors before guards shut down the power. He waits for Evens to return with photos. After several hours, Evens reappears after digging through the rubble of his family's house and finding two survivors.