BOSTON

Two hours after the quake the IFRC informed us they were going in – but how to get in was the question.  Canada’s Jean-Pierre Taschereau would be the FACT team leader on this operation.  We briefly discussed the options:  via Miami or New York, island hop from Gaudelope or Curacao, or fly into the Domincan Republic and drive to Port au Prince (P-A-P).

Crew getting ready for departure at Pearson airport

We figured Miami would get us closest with the most possible flights daily – and although there were conflicting reports it seemed the P-A-P airport would be operational by tomorrow.

After a couple hours sleep our team was at Pearson Airport, ready to go, but during check-in it became clear getting in through Miami was going to take at least a week.  Flights were cancelled for two more days, and for the next five days every flight was booked solid.

We quickly switched gears.  We’re now in the Boston airport en route to Santo Domingo in the DR. The IFRC has five FACT team members descending on the DR from Canada, Panama,and Europe.  Three ERUs are on their way.  The IFRC’s biggest problem is going to be figuring out how to get into Port-au-Prince in time to help.  Roads are blocked, the P-A-P airport is closed, security is supposedly a concern, and a weather system moving in from the DR could bring rain and deadly landslide to P-A-P.

There’s no time to waste.

Living in southern Ontario I’ve been immune to most kinds of natural disaster.  In many parts of the world people aren’t as lucky.  Especially in Asia, where natural disasters are a way of life, and countries lie in the path of storm tracks nicknamed Typhoon Alley.

CGI rendering of a tsunami wave

On average the Philippines sees 20 typhoons a year.  What I’m doing now – waking up each morning to track tropical storms, earth tremors, active volcanoes and other disaster alerts is what relief workers around the globe do day in and day out, religiously.  I’ve become partial to these warning sites:  Humanitarian News, Tropical Storm Risk, Emergency and Disaster Information Service.

With all of this information available to help us predict when, where and how bad; it’s sort of surprising that every year tens of thousands of people are killed or injured by natural disasters.  Cyclones are tracked for days and sometimes weeks before they run aground.  Tsunamis take anywhere from one to six hours to reach land after being initiated by an earthquake or landslide.  Floods, resulting from weeks or months of heavy rainfall, account for more disasters than any other type of natural calamity each year.   So why with so many early warning signs are so many people suffering?  And why do the worst disasters seem to hit the poorest parts of the world repeatedly?  Germanwatch recently published a climate risk index for countries susceptible to extreme weather conditions Top 10 At Risk Countries.  The top 10 are among the poorest countries in the world.

Seen safely from high ground, a wave of the 1960 Chilean tsunami pours into Onagawa, Japan. From USGS.

Four of the deadliest tsunamis in known history have happened around Japan. In fact the word Tsunami is Japanese for “tsu” meaning harbor, and “nami” meaning wave.  But a comparison of the impact of two recent Asian tsunamis one in the Sea of Japan and another in Papua New Guinea seems to demonstrate a clear link between poverty and disaster.  In Japan a 1993 tsunami killed about 14 percent of the at-risk population, where as five years later in Papua New Guinea 40 percent perished.  The difference:  the Japanese were educated about tsunamis, they knew what to watch for, and they had alert systems and evacuation plans.  Papua New Guinea had none ofthese things.  Yet information on tsunamis has been available for decades, Surviving a Tsunami – Lessons from Chile, Hawaii and Japan. If we had the knowledge then why did 300,000 people have to die in the Southern Indian Ocean?

All of this waiting and watching leaves me wondering…why do we keep making the same mistakes?

Front page thumbnail photo by Barbara Davidson.

Ten years in the field making documentaries has taught me to prepare for the worst, so naturally the first priority was to hire a really good team.   Probably the only reason I can sleep at night is because I’m going to face the unknown with four people who’ve shot in just about every situation imaginable.

I’ve worked with Tony Wannamaker filming out of planes and helicopters; racing full sail over open ocean and submerged 30 meters under water.  Our soundman, Paul Adlaf, is a technical wizard and can custom fabricate whatever we need.

This shoot poses serious problems in providing electricity for our power hungry video cameras, computers, modem, satellite phone and audio equipment. To provide a flexible back up solution to our Honda EU1000 generator, Paul created a modular power package.

The modular power package: two Gel Cell batteries, a 115/230 volt battery charger, 24Watt fold up solar panels, three DC/AC Inverters, and a slew of plug adapters.

It consists of two Gel Cell batteries, a 115/230 volt battery charger, 24Watt fold up solar panels, three DC/AC Inverters, and a slew of plug adapters.  This modular approach gives us the flexibility to charge up the batteries when power is available and run all the gear for days without it.

Stefan Randstrom, our second unit DOP, has shot in nearly every country we might go to, and survived some pretty hairy situations.  When his boat capsized in the Philippines he spent 18 hours treading water, before he and his team were rescued.  Second unit sound is Simon Paine.  I’ve never worked with Simon, but when I saw a photo of him standing in a rubber dinghy, moving alongside a canoe, and booming boat to boat – I figured he was our guy.

All five of us are on call to follow the Red Cross into a disaster zone, and that means we could go anywhere in the world.  We don’t know what kind of disaster we’ll film, but we know that when the call comes we’ll be on a plane in less than 12 hours.  Our mission is to stick with the Red Cross relief workers on the ground, and follow the action.  To do that we should travel light and move fast – but being ready for anything requires stuff.

Working in the aftermath of a disaster zone for 30 days, we’ll need to be self-sufficient.  The last thing we want to do is take from a country that’s just been hit by a disaster.  That means supplying our own food, water, electricity and communications.  We’ve packed MREs (meals ready to eat), water filters, generators, and satellite phones.  We have first aid kits; ready with splints, needles and compresses.  Malaria pills may be in our kit depending on where we go, and because the location is unknown we’ve all been shot up with a cocktail of vaccines. For most documentary shoots, we wouldn’t need to bring any of these items, but this isn’t a typical shoot.

In addition to the “survival gear”, we need the tools of the trade – the recording equipment.  In the age of High Definition, the gear necessary to make a broadcast quality documentary isn’t lightweight or easy to carry.  At the end of our shoot we expect to have about 300 hours of footage.  Reading Nico’s blog, I’m envious of his lone backpack.

We’ve got tripods, lights, booms, sound mixers, a case of lithium batteries, and the carefully chosen Sony XDCAM.

Sony XDCAM

Given the unknown conditions, we needed a camera that could operate in all extremes – wet, dusty, hot and cold.  Two years ago when I was in Haiti, our tape camera failed.  Excessive desertification has turned parts of the island into a dustbowl, and after 10 days of filming the heads jammed.  With no heads to jam, the XDCAM should side step these types of problems.  The laser discs are also more durable than tape; some testimonials on the Internet go so far as to claim that the discs are indestructible.  Our 50GB stock probably couldn’t survive being rolled over by a 2-ton truck, but we can wade through floodwaters and not have to worry. Having two geared up, self-sufficient documentary crews equals a lot of baggage – not ideal when ground transport is scarce and moving quickly is a must.  To keep pace with what’s happening on the ground, we’ve packed everything in modules.  Depending on the situation we’ll be able to grab and go, and with any luck we’ll keep a base camp throughout the shoot.

I’m sure there’s some eventuality we haven’t considered.  Hopefully it’s something we can adapt for.  If you know an unknown we haven’t thought of, let us know in the comments below.