\n Publicist's Note: Kirk Wolfinger is a producer working\nwith NOVA on a new documentary on the science behind predicting earthquakes. \n\n
Filming in Haiti was a chaotic success. This disaster is the\nentry point for a much bigger story that we hope to tell: can we ever predict\nan earthquake? The work of the researchers that we interviewed down there is\njust a start--scientists believe this is possible, but we aren't\nthere yet.
As soon as we hit the ground in Haiti, all that we planned\nin advance for this shoot flew out the window. We did everything on the run and\nmade decisions as we went. It is a war zone limited--thank God--to only a few\nweapons. Right now, there are no rules in Haiti. Money and the black-market\nrule. At the airport, stacks upon stacks of food, water, tents, and other aide\nsit on the tarmac while people line the street with sacks three blocks away,\nmerely hoping for some rice.
\n\n On the first day, I did a preliminary interview with\nearthquake scientists Paul Mann and Richard Koehler in the hub of the airport.\nFor now, these men are scientists on the run.\n\nSo we ran with them, to capture their work. We crammed six\npeople into a five-passenger helicopter, much to the chagrin of the pilot, and\nflew over the Haitian countryside, searching the surface of the land for\nevidence of earthquake fault lines. \n\n\n\n The second the helicopter skids hit the ground, with the\nblades still turning, what seemed like an uninhabited stretch of country sprung\nto life. We were surrounded by anywhere from 50 to 150 friendly, but hungry,\npeople. \n\n\n\n\n\n We followed Paul and Richard and their new Haitian entourage\nas they scoured the landscape for signs of eruptions in the earth. \n The next day Eric Calais, a geophysicist at Purdue\nUniversity who has conducted research in the area for years, took his team on a\nsearch, measuring benchmark locations with GPS systems, calculating stress\nchanges and trying to explain their findings. \n\n\n\n\n\n Eric took us through the belly of the beast, Port-au-Prince.
Eric is a real hero. He loves his Haitian counterparts and makes sure they get\ncredit for their work. Right now they're working out of the Bureau of Mines,\nsince the Ministry of Geology was flattened in the quake. \n\n The bureau took in about 100 people after they lost their\nhomes and we captured that on film. \n\n\n\n\n\n I was able to ride with Eric and we did a running interview.\nEric is very knowledgeable, and he also cares about people, not just his\nexperiment. When we researched his first benchmark, on top of a police station,\nthere were 2,000 people surrounding the place, waiting for food. I got out of\nthe car to take a few shots and was nearly relieved of my camera, but was able\nto hold onto it. \n\n Eric decided we better move onto his next station--another\npolice station located a half hour away. The next station was crowded but\naccessible. Eric took his reading, which indicated the whole area had shifted.\nHe set up his GPS and computer and will return in a couple of weeks to get more\naccurate data and to see if the shift is continuing. We could only see the\nbeginning of Eric's process, but his first reading showed a significant\nmovement. \n\n\n\n\n\n Richard and Paul left Haiti. Eric will continue doing his work for another couple\nweeks. \n\n After our interviews, I paid our driver to take us into the\nheart of Port-au-Prince to get some images of the devastation. We had about an\nhour of daylight before curfew and we made the most of it. We were able to\nfinally get out of a moving vehicle and get some solid, calm images of the\ndestruction. I won't even try to describe it. It makes every problem I've ever\nhad evaporate into silliness. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n Unless I was hallucinating (and there were times that was\nlikely), the footage will portray nonstop action and drama. Everything in Haiti\nis upside down. Our only refuge was the airport, but even there we weren't able\nto rest for long. We got kicked out twice, first by the Canadian army then by\nthe U.S. army. \n\n\n\n Where is all the charity money? I tried to interview a\nrefugee at the bureau of mines and nearly got mobbed by several men who, while\nthey appreciated that they had a place to sleep, couldn't understand why they\ncouldn't get any food. I emptied all our PowerBars and trail mix, but I wasn't\nmaking any friends. This country will need decades to recover and I give it a\n50-50 shot at best. Now think about the fact that Istanbul, Turkey is one tremor\naway from a similar fate. \n