For S.F. Colleagues, Haiti Quake Interrupted Work Trip

The Recorder

January 27, 2010

By Zusha Elinson

SAN FRANCISCO - Bob Page, Grace Brown and Jessica Vapnek sat down to a
meeting sometime after 4 p.m. on Jan. 12 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. They
were there working on a project to strengthen the country's shaky
judicial system and had come to talk with local lawyers.

Just before 5 p.m., there was a huge roar and shaking, "like a train
coming right through your living room," recalls Page, 65, a former court
administrator and the co-founder of San Francisco-based DPK Consulting,
which helps build judicial systems in developing countries.

Vapnek, a 46-year-old lawyer who recently joined DPK, dove under the
glass conference table. Page headed for the doorway and Brown, a DPK
executive and Page's wife, ran for the exit.

Miraculously, the offices of the Brown Consulting Group, where the
meeting took place, remained standing. The buildings on either side did
not.

Outside, all they saw was a huge cloud of dust; then people rushing by
on the road.

"Women carrying children that were injured ... and the women were
singing," Brown, 43, recounted through tears in an interview at her San
Francisco office Tuesday. "It was an interesting response to a stressful
situation."

In their business attire - Brown wearing a pair of dark heels - the
group hiked up the road toward the Hotel Montana, where they'd checked
in the day before.

Half-finished homes built one on top of another had slid down the hill.
Trucks that serve as buses in Haiti, filled with people, were crushed by
the falling debris. "You read in the paper about loss of life and I
think it's really incomprehensible until you witness it," said Brown.

The hotel, a favorite destination for foreigners, was a pile of concrete
slabs. It has become a focal point of news coverage here because
Americans are believed to still be trapped inside.

That night, the three lay down on a lawn near the hotel with about 20
others to sleep. It was damp and cold - and they pulled DPK's annual
plan for the Haiti project from a briefcase, pulled it apart and put it
down on the ground. Vapnek tore up more of the 82-page, USAID-approved
plan and stuffed it into her blouse to keep warm.

With the aftershocks, the rumbling of the city, the people crying, no
one slept.

The next morning, the little lawn was transformed into a helipad and a
hospital for treating and evacuating the injured from the Hotel Montana.

U.N. peacekeeping troops cleared the area with chain saws and dynamite.

Page, a tall, calm and confident man who was raised in Vermont, grabbed
an ax and began chopping trees, still in his suit and tie. Later, he
would help relief workers haul the injured from the rubble of the hotel,
carrying them on makeshift stretchers made out of hotel doors. Legs and
arms were crushed, bent in ways they weren't supposed to.

One young woman, the daughter of a doctor, had been hit in the head with
a piece of concrete. Her scalp and face were bleeding, her eyes swollen
and purple. Vapnek, who has worked around the world for the U.N. and
other organizations, gave the woman alcohol wipes and Motrin that she
had in her bag.

At 1 p.m. on Wednesday, the three decided it was time to leave. There
wasn't much food and water, they had little in the way of medical
skills, and a photographer had told them that the road to the Dominican
Republic was clear. They drove slowly through the streets of
Port-au-Prince, avoiding the crushed cars - and the bodies of the dead
that were now piled up alongside the road.

They drove all afternoon, and gunned it through the border because
Vapnek had left her passport in the hotel. They arrived in Santo
Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic. They ate a full meal for
the first time since a lunch of beans, rice and chicken the day before.
Soon they were on planes back to San Francisco.

Their families were relieved to see them. Vapnek had been able to text
and call her father, Townsend and Townsend and Crew of counsel Paul
Vapnek, as well as her 5-year-old son, David. When they spoke on
Wednesday night, David had asked her: "Mommy? You're not in Haiti and
you're not dead?"

Looking back, the three share survivors' guilt. News reports have put
the death toll at more than 150,000. The capital of the poor country is
entirely leveled.

We had "a certain feeling of guilt, that we had left, that we were fine
and others weren't," said Page. "I think it was the right decision
because we were not relief workers. We didn't have the tools or the
means to help in that instance, and by being there it would mean food
and water for us and not others."

Already, DPK has been working to get the justice system up and running
again, Page said. They're sending tents and generators - and are working
on a long-term plan as well. The company's staff in Haiti all survived.

The U.S. government, which contracted with DPK for the project - it
includes making sure people charged with crimes get speedy trials and
building up public defenders' offices - has told them to continue the
work.

"We do this work because we love it," said Brown. "This firm was born of
a commitment to create systems that will protect human rights and foster
economic growth, and an earthquake doesn't crush that commitment - I
think it strengthens it."

Vapnek said she feels lucky.

"I feel so incredibly fortunate," she said. "That's where I try not to
let my mind go to all the what ifs. ... What if the building we had been
in had not stood up well? What if the glass table had something fall in
it? What if we'd been in the hotel? ... What if, what if. You just can't
let your mind go there."