The REvive Jacmel medical center in Jacmel, Haiti, is not a typical construction project. It’s being led by a Portland plastic surgeon, and costing approximately $150,000 — close to $35,000 more than budgeted originally. Project planning began in 2013; completion is slated for 2016.

But now the collaborative effort has almost produced a building … finally.

“It’s been a long, strange trip, and we’ve had lots and lots of help from lots of different people,” said Michael Workman, the Portlander who for the past three years has shepherded the effort to build the center. “I’ve never done anything like this before; I mean, I’m a private-practice plastic surgeon. I guess I was just looking for some way to help.”

With walls up and roof trusses assembled and ready for installation, the REvive Jacmel dental and surgical center is now, literally, off the ground. Elections in Haiti caused delays.

“There were times when I thought, boy, we’re never going to get shovels in the ground,” said Jim McKune, a retired general contractor and REvive Jacmel project team member.

On Jan. 12, 2010, Haiti was rocked by a magnitude 7.0 earthquake that laid waste to the capital city of Port-au-Prince and outlying areas. By chance it was the same day as Associated General Contractors‘ annual meeting in Oregon. After watching news footage showing the devastation, an AGC committee convened and voted to send money to the people of Haiti. It committed $75,000 up front, and individuals contributed more.

As a recipient for the money was sought, it “sat there and sat there and sat there,” McKune recalled. A land deal fell through and a designer pulled out. In time, students from the University of Oregon and Oregon State University were involved.

“The idea was to make this into a learning opportunity, so everybody benefits,” said Dale Campbell, former AGC president.

KPFF Engineering and Waterleaf Architecture signed on, assisting designs and working with students. Then, about two years ago, the group identified a 5-acre property near a Children’s Hope orphanage, where a surgical and dental center could be built for the price in mind. Children’s Hope, a ministry of the First Baptist Church of Montgomery, Ala., donated the land. Scott Payne of Children’s Hope has supervised the project on site.

Two months ago, the shovels finally hit the ground. The floor has been poured and the walls put up. OSU students traveled there to assemble the roof trusses, which are under tarps and should be installed soon.

Workman first visited the affected area three years ago, and came across people dying who couldn’t afford surgery. He saw a woman who contracted gangrene following a foot amputation, and a boy with a hernia whose intestines protruded through his stomach. Many people in the affected area earn no more than $2 a day. Medical centers accept only cash and no insurance.
“In essence, for many people, there’s no medical care,” he said.

Though there is a finish line of sorts in sight, Workman said the work won’t end when construction is complete. Next will come the matter of operating the full-time medical facility.

“One thing you notice when you go there,” he said, is “there’s so much need.”

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Reconstruction efforts in Haiti are moving as slowly as the vehicles that attempt to travel on the country’s unpaved, rubble-filled roads.

One year ago, a 7.0-magnitude earthquake hit Port-Au-Prince, killing hundreds of thousands of people and leaving many more without basic shelter. Oregon building professionals have since made multiple trips to Haiti to assess damaged structures and promote modern construction techniques.

Craig Totten of since early 2010 has worked with the to train Haitian builders in confined masonry construction, and with global nonprofit to rebuild schools. He planned to return to Haiti at the end of December, but a cholera epidemic and political unrest have postponed the trip.

“When I started working in Haiti early last year, I really thought things would be further along by this year,” Totten said. “The energy and enthusiasm I saw in January and March had disappeared by my last visit in August. Now, there is resignation to bureaucracy and the way things are done at such a slow pace in Haiti.”

Much of the money given to Haiti has not been spent, Totten said, because of fragmentation and confusion within Haiti’s government. The hesitancy to spend donated money, Totten said, comes from fears of allocating funds to the wrong project or organization. Groups of churches, global nonprofit groups and government agencies all are trying to sort through the rubble on their own, he added.

Plus, many of Haiti’s government officials perished at their desks in the capitol building when the earthquake hit, Totten said.

“This is a country that didn’t function well before the earthquake,” he said. “Then they lost most of their best people. Individual groups are trying to make projects happen on their own, but there is no coordinated recovery effort.”

Meanwhile, nearly 1 million people continue to live in tent cities, which are plagued by poor sanitation and the spread of disease.

Structural engineering firm has established an office in Port-Au-Prince, and engineer Kit Miyamoto has been working with the and Haiti’s public works department to assess damaged structures. More than 400,000 damaged structures have been assessed so far, Miyamoto said, and about 100,000 were either heavily damaged or completely destroyed. His group has repaired approximately 1,000 buildings.

“Big chunks of people still live in tents because their homes are unsafe to occupy,” Miyamoto said. “Tents are horrible places full of disease, violence and rape. I am hopeful that Haiti can become safe. Haitian engineers, masons and contractors are open to learning new skills and motivated to save their country.”

Political unrest, more than anything else, has slowed reconstruction efforts, Miyamoto said. Violence erupted during and after Haiti’s 2010 elections in November, when assessments became unsafe for an entire week.

Totten plans to return to Haiti as soon as possible. He wants to join the to finish a repair project at an orphanage. Its residents presently live in tents. He also is hopeful that a school design he worked on will reach BuildOn in the coming months, so that the nonprofit can start building new schools in the southern portion of the country.

Miyamoto’s group this year plans to rebuild homes in three different communities as part of a pilot project. The neighborhoods have approximately 2,000 slightly damaged structures, including many that housed at least two families, Miyamoto said. Getting people back in their homes, Miyamoto said, is the first step to greater recovery. He is hopeful that money this year will reach those who need it.

“When an event occurs where 300,000 people die, it takes time to figure out the damage,” Miyamoto said. “It seems to go very slow. But these deaths won’t be a waste. Haiti is going to be a better place with better cities built by the Haitian people. That’s the way it should be done.”

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For Haitian children, attending school is a privilege and not a right. If they’re lucky, they get to cram into a stuffy room in a small, concrete schoolhouse.

But after an earthquake in January leveled many Haitian schools, the Oregon chapter of Architects Without Borders and global nonprofit BuildOn are working to create educational facilities with greater seismic strength and more comfort for occupants. The group is being challenged, however, to develop an effective design that is feasible with Haiti’s limited building materials.

For the past year, Portland engineer Craig Totten of KPFF Consulting Engineers has worked with AWB-Oregon to inspect damaged buildings and teach Haitians seismically sound construction techniques. BuildOn, which constructs schools in poor communities around the world, heard about Totten’s work in Haiti and asked him to inspect several schools the nonprofit built there prior to the earthquake, according to Skyler Badenoch, manager of international programs for BuildOn.

The nonprofit’s schools featured a concrete block design and were made from inexpensive materials available locally; however, they don’t hold up well during earthquakes, Totten said.

“The schools are designed with shear walls that are too small and not adequately (designed) to survive an earthquake,” Totten said. “We’re looking at improving the schools structurally, as well as architecturally.”

BuildOn then asked AWB-Oregon to assemble volunteers to design a better school prototype for future projects, Badenoch said.

No roads are available for trucks to transport building supplies, so most of Haiti’s schools are constructed from concrete building forms, Totten said. These concrete boxes are topped with concrete roofs. The schools have no running water or electricity, so they rely on perforated concrete blocks for ventilation and natural light.

Classrooms are approximately 400 square feet and are packed with students, who can encounter hot and uncomfortable learning environments, according to Jamin Aasum, an AWB-Oregon volunteer and senior designer with Mahlum Architects.

“When you design schools in the U.S., lighting and ventilation are the most important to education,” Aasum said. “Daylight can affect retention by 40 percent. You have to keep kids awake and learning. In Haiti, if students have more than three absences, they’re gone. You’d be amazed how many kids they pack into these rooms.”

An alternative to the heavy concrete roofs used for schools, Totten said, could be a first step toward a better school design. Because the schools must operate without electricity, volunteers with AWB-Oregon want to use more perforated blocks to create windows where fresh air can flow. Punching more holes in the walls will weaken them, however, increasing the likelihood of a heavy concrete roof collapsing and crushing inhabitants during a seismic event.

A lighter, metal roof is an option, Totten said, because it would allow more perforation in walls for air flow. But metal roofs, if designed improperly, are more susceptible to collapse than concrete in an earthquake. Metal roofs also are noisy during rainstorms, Aasum said, and could inhibit learning.

“There’s no glass available, so builders use these perforated blocks for windows,” Aasum said. “Locals don’t have a way to seal concrete roofs, so there’s leaking and it makes it tough to get ventilation in there. We’re looking at metal roofs, but those have noise problems. We have a very limited range of design options that we’re looking into.”

AWB-Oregon’s school design could be replicated by BuildOn in other countries with limited materials, according to John Blumthal, an AWB-Oregon board member and a principal at Yost Grube Hall Architecture. He said this project illuminates the continuing need for architects’ services worldwide.

“Architects understand the skills we have can be very beneficial to many communities that can’t afford professional services,” Blumthal said. “This project is an effort to reach out and put our capabilities to use beyond our paying customers.”

A final schoolhouse design will be presented to BuildOn by the end of the year, Badenoch said. The organization plans to use the design for its next project in Haiti.

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A team of more than 200 Haitian engineers and a team of engineers from Miyamoto International has performed assessments on over 50,000 structures in Haiti in the past five weeks.

Principal Kit Miyamoto of Miyamoto International says the project’s goal is to assess damage on 100,000 structures in the greater Port-au-Prince area using local workers. A partnership between the Haitian government, United Nations Office of Project Services, World Bank and Miyamoto International, the project also trained over 200 Haitian engineers on how to perform damage assessments.

“These people are hard working, good engineers,” Miyamoto said. “They come to work rain or shine. We’ve been performing about 2,000 assessments each day.”

During a damage assessment, buildings were given red, yellow or green tags based on condition. Miyamoto said that about 45 percent of the structures were green, or safe to inhabit, 35 percent were yellow, or damaged but safe to enter, and 20 percent were red, or unsafe to enter.

Damage assessments at this point in Haiti’s recovery are key, Kit said, since nearly one million Haitians are still living in tent cities, and the rainy season is starting. Along with the International Organization for Migration, the team has identified several sites with shelter where people can be moved.

“We’ll be here until things get done,” Miyamoto said. “The last thing you want to do in a situation like this is show up and leave.”

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Haiti’s failed buildings have drawn a lot of attention since the Jan. 12 earthquake that hit the country. But engineers also are concerned about the effects the earthquake has had on the country’s fragile roads, power lines and communication systems.

Shannon & Wilson Inc. engineer Aimee Lavarnway last month returned from a trip with the American Society of Civil Engineers’ Technical Council on Lifeline Earthquake Engineering. Lifeline engineering involves systems and facilities that are vital to a society’s ability to recover from a natural disaster. Such systems include electric power, liquid fuel, natural gas, transportation, water and wastewater treatment.

Eleven engineers, along with a 19-person team from the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, visited Haiti from Feb. 28 to March 6. According to Lavarnway, Haiti’s greatest lifeline failure was at the port in Port-au-Prince, where communication systems, and air, land and sea transport facilities were severely damaged.

Haiti’s roads also sustained significant damage. Some are still blocked by rockfalls and landslides. Relief teams were unable to deliver aid to neighboring towns such as Jacmel for nearly 10 days after the earthquake due to blocked roads. However, the situation is improving, Lavarnway said.

“There are still a lot of landslides to clear, but the roads themselves are pretty much open now,” she said. “Still, it was pretty hard to see the devastation that still exists.”

A Degenkolb Engineers team, including Mike Rookstool, Mark Sinclair, Matt Barnard and Henry Burton, returned from Haiti on March 29 after performing school-building assessments. Rookstool said generators are supplying much of the power for Port-au-Prince.

“The tent camps were running off of generators at night,” Rookstool said. “Our hotel was running off of a generator that had to be swapped out each night to power the air-conditioning. Most residences were using generators, and I’m skeptical there was a good source of running water.”

Miyamoto International engineer Scott Nyseth, who has been performing building assessments in Chile, said cities should pay more attention to their power grids to limit downtime following a natural disaster.

“In other places there are power companies that have a seismic program in place,” Nyseth said. “They spend the money to be sure there is … limited damage to their systems so power isn’t paralyzed during an event like an earthquake.”

According to Rookstool, governments can be better prepared for emergencies by ensuring there are back-up plans for delivery of power and utilities.

“Having a plan in place gets you to recovery that much quicker,” Rookstool said. “Given that 13 of 15 government buildings were heavily damaged, I don’t think that plan is in place in Haiti. The government is still trying to be back in business, let alone getting facilities up and running.”

Rookstool said he was unprepared for the amount of devastation he witnessed in Haiti.

“Even after seeing the damage in photos and reading reports, I didn’t put the effect the earthquake had on the people into context until I got there,” Rookstool said. “I expected the buildings, but the thing that shocked me was the number of people displaced from their homes. You just see tents everywhere.”

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More than two months after a catastrophic 7.0-magnitude earthquake rocked Haiti, life there is still far from normal. Most of the inhabitants live in tents among the rubble still awaiting cleanup, afraid to be inside existing buildings for fear of being crushed in their sleep.

“The devastation is incredible,” said engineer Craig Totten of KPFF Consulting Engineers. “Life is restarting, but this is a population in shock. Everyone has lost a family member. They are recovering from severe injuries. It’s a very difficult situation.”

Totten and a team of volunteer masons traveled recently to Haiti to perform damage assessments, and to teach Haitian builders a more effective construction method than unreinforced concrete masonry. KPFF, which has sponsored visits by Totten and other engineers to Haiti, plans to have people on the ground there through the end of April.

In Haiti, 95 percent of the buildings were constructed from unreinforced masonry walls with concrete frames, which has been identified as the main factor in the catastrophic earthquake damage. But confined masonry construction techniques being taught by Totten and other volunteers will allow local builders to use the same low-cost materials they had been using to build structures that are more resistant to earthquakes.

“The idea is to teach them a method that uses the skills and materials they already have to reconstruct buildings in a more sustainable and seismically sound way,” Totten said.

Confined masonry construction is used around the world in countries like Slovenia, Mexico and Chile because of its affordability and superior seismic performance. The method directs builders to construct the masonry walls first and then pour concrete columns and beams to confine the walls in place. This allows the masonry walls to carry the seismic load during an earthquake.

According to a report by the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the cost of confined masonry construction ranges from $150 per square meter to $300 per square meter. Chile has used the building technique since the 1930s. After an 8.8-magnitude earthquake struck Chile in late February, damage was discovered to be much less significant than in Haiti because of the country’s strong building codes.

On a trip to Haiti earlier this month, Totten and two volunteer masons from Clem Fleck Masonry of Woodburn woke up each morning to 100-degree heat and stifling humidity. They spent the morning hours assessing seismic damage sustained by buildings still standing. Travel expenses, as well as an interpreter for the trip, were paid for by Hoffman Construction.

“You’re kind of humbled in the midst of this enormous destruction,” said Clem Fleck, owner of Clem Fleck Masonry. “You just feel like nothing. I’ve experienced earthquakes in Oregon but nothing compared to the destruction I saw in Haiti.”

When the Haitian builders finished work in mid-afternoon, Totten and masons Fleck and Robert Miller held two-hour training sessions on confined masonry construction, complete with handouts translated into French and Haitian Creole. At the end of the discussion, the volunteers helped the builders construct small mock-ups to demonstrate the block and rebar detailing required by confined masonry.

“The strength of the products they use would never pass U.S. standards or standards for other countries,” Fleck said. “When they use cement, they don’t use very much at all.”

“Generally, the builders and masons were very open to it,” Totten said. “They were interested and surprised that they didn’t have to do much different to make their buildings safer.”

But more training is needed, Totten said. That’s why he will return to Haiti in early April to continue offering workshops on confined masonry construction. Masons’ travel expenses for that trip are being covered by the Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group, a nonprofit that helps communities gain access to electricity, sanitation and clean water.

“We are looking for more masons to come with us,” Totten said. “There’s no significant reconstruction happening right now. There’s too much work still to be done clearing the rubble.”

And soon, the hurricane season will be upon Haiti. Totten hopes that the rain might drive some of the Haitians living in tents back into buildings that have been assessed as safe, so that the spread of waterborne illness might be lessened.

But he understands their fears.

“I slept in a tent as well,” Totten said. “There’s a fear of being inside these buildings that is very real. But the effort I saw there to rebuild is pretty amazing. The number of volunteers restores your faith in humankind.”

To learn more about volunteering as a mason in Haiti, contact Craig Totten at craig.totten@kpff.com.

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The Portland office of environmental research and services firm ABR Inc. has donated nearly $8,500 to two health organizations currently giving aid to earthquake survivors in Haiti.

ABR Inc.’s employees raised $3,245 to send to Doctors without Borders and Partners in Health. That amount was matched by the company for a total of $8,490.

The company, which performs environmental impact assessments, ecological restoration projects and other work, also has offices in Alaska and Massachusetts.

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The Associated Builders and Contractors joined with the Modular Building Institute to deliver medical relief to Haiti. The alliance, called Start Today and Rebuild Together, or START, will provide 12 modular containers filled with medical supplies.

Plans call for the organization to set up a base camp for volunteers, build permanent housing and commercial infrastructure, and raise money and awareness for long-term assistance.

Rebuilding the country will help not only in the short term but will establish stable buildings that can help the country better withstand another quake like the one that hit in January, said John Killin, president of the ABC‘s Pacific Northwest chapter.

“Contractors are always searching for ways to help, and ABC is taking a proactive approach,” Killin said. “The next time a tragedy like this happens, we’ll be ready.”

Get more information at the , or donate at .��

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Though it was a much larger earthquake than the one that struck Haiti earlier this year, far fewer people were killed in Chile early Saturday morning.�� After the 8.0 magnitude earthquake in Chile, seven hundred were killed. In Haiti, after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake, more than 230,000 were killed.

One reason for the discrepancy is better enforced building codes. Another reason is wealth.

Unlike Haiti, Chile is one of the wealthiest countries in Latin America. After a 9.5 magnitude earthquake killed 5,000 people in 1960, the country imposed strict building material quality rules and even identified weak points beneath the soil under its major cities. Though help is still flowing into Haiti to rebuild its infrastructure, it will be many more years and many millions of dollars before the country can achieve building codes like Chile’s.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, but the American Society of Civil Engineers says that 26 percent of our country’s bridges are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. In addition, the ASCE estimates there is a $17 billion shortfall in maintenance spending every year for bridges.

What gives America? Small steps are being taken at a state level, like a recent announcement by the Oregon state Department of Geology and Mineral Industries that 13 schools and 11 emergency management facilities will be retrofitted to withstand earthquakes. But according to the same agency, thousands of such buildings are at risk of collapse during an earthquake statewide.

I really hope it doesn’t take a quake like Chile’s or Haiti’s for city, state and federal governments here in the U.S. to invest the money to make un-reinforced concrete in buildings a thing of the past.

If there are any engineers, architects or builders planning to offer aid in Chile, please leave a comment here with your contact information.

The post Will it take a quake? appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Though it was a much larger earthquake than the one that struck Haiti earlier this year, far fewer people were killed in Chile early Saturday morning.�� After the 8.0 magnitude earthquake in Chile, seven hundred were killed. In Haiti, after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake, more than 230,000 were killed.

One reason for the discrepancy is better enforced building codes. Another reason is wealth.

Unlike Haiti, Chile is one of the wealthiest countries in Latin America. After a 9.5 magnitude earthquake killed 5,000 people in 1960, the country imposed strict building material quality rules and even identified weak points beneath the soil under its major cities. Though help is still flowing into Haiti to rebuild its infrastructure, it will be many more years and many millions of dollars before the country can achieve building codes like Chile’s.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, but the American Society of Civil Engineers says that 26 percent of our country’s bridges are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. In addition, the ASCE estimates there is a $17 billion shortfall in maintenance spending every year for bridges.

What gives America? Small steps are being taken at a state level, like a recent announcement by the Oregon state Department of Geology and Mineral Industries that 13 schools and 11 emergency management facilities will be retrofitted to withstand earthquakes. But according to the same agency, thousands of such buildings are at risk of collapse during an earthquake statewide.

I really hope it doesn’t take a quake like Chile’s or Haiti’s for city, state and federal governments here in the U.S. to invest the money to make un-reinforced concrete in buildings a thing of the past.

If there are any engineers, architects or builders planning to offer aid in Chile, please leave a comment here with your contact information.

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