Haiti relief flight departs O'Hare with local volunteers

Editors note: Daily Herald Photographer Rick West is on board a United Airlines flight to Haiti Wednesday that dropped off aid workers and supplies and is scheduled to return this evening full of people evacuated from the devastated country.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- As a United Airlines aid flight circled the Port-au-Prince airport Wednesday, the view from the airplane windows showed collapsed buildings, several fires and streets packed with people after an early morning earthquake, the second in eight days.

Minutes later, on the ground inside the airport fences, the situation was only slightly better. Crowds of people waited to board planes out of the country, and the air traffic controllers worked from a table next to a little radio tower alongside a runway.

The mission brought cargo, volunteers and a few media representatives on a flight that left O'Hare International Airport before dawn. During a roughly three-hour midday stop in Port-au-Prince, about 30 volunteer aid workers left the plane and headed into the city. About 15,000 pounds of water, bandages and other supplies were unloaded, and then 79 people got on board.

After a stop in San Juan, Puerto Rico, to change crew and refuel, the Boeing 757 returned to O'Hare late Wednesday evening. United planned to repeat the process today, with a second flight departing about 6:40 a.m. with doctors, nurses and relief workers on board. The company said it plans for up to 30 days of daily flights.

On Wednesday night, Gov. Pat Quinn greeted passengers at the gate, and Red Cross workers handed out coats and steered people to McDonald's employees who handed out meals.

"God bless America, land of opportunity. I'm glad to be here," exclaimed Anastazia Abraham of New York, who had been in Haiti visiting her husband. Wednesday morning, watching as bodies of earthquake victims were cleared away, she thought, "I have to get out."

Several passengers were pushed into O'Hare's International Terminal in wheelchairs - but wearing smiles. Others, draped in airline blankets, seemed exhausted.

Among those flying to Chicago were 62 U.S. citizens and 17 Haitian citizens, including aid workers returning after days in the ravaged city, other U.S. citizens or visa holders, or people whose children are U.S. citizens, officials said. The passengers were among hundreds waiting inside the airport boundaries who had been cleared by U.S. State Department workers for entry into the United States.

Three passengers from Harpo, Oprah's production company, also hitched a ride home, said Mary Jones of Bensenville, a United employee who coordinated the aid flight.

For most, there was no choice of destination. Some wanted to wait for a flight to Miami, where they might have had friends or relatives, but U.S. military workers shepherded them onto the Chicago-bound flight. Nearly all intended to go on to Miami or New York,

Given only limited time on the ground at the crowded Port-au-Prince airport, the volunteer United flight crew took only about a half-hour to unload supplies, including tents, communications equipment, 14,000 pounds of bottled water donated by Walgreens, five water purification systems sent by Louisville, Ky.-based Edge Outreach, and wound dressings donated by Lisle-based Chasing Lions LLC. The specialized wound dressings have to be applied only once, a boon for patients with little chance for ongoing medical care.

Those of us on the flight down to Haiti were unsure what we would see. Before landing, a United doctor gathered airline employees in the front of the plane and prepared them for what they might encounter - the stench of death, gravely wounded people, children so needy it would be painful not to scoop them up and bring them home. None of that was evident at the airport or immediately outside the grounds, where thousands of people waited along the fence with nowhere to escape temperatures in the mid-80s. One man held a sign offering translating services to incoming aid workers.

The airport's damaged terminal building was covered with fallen ceiling panels, broken glass and water, and the control tower was severely damaged. Plane after plane, many C141 military cargo planes, landed, unloaded and took off, making room for the next. The planes came from across the globe, including France, Colombia, China and the U.S. Pallet upon pallet loaded with supplies were lined up at the airport waiting to be distributed.

Despite the long day, the United volunteers and aid workers had a sense of energy and purpose.

Arlington Heights resident Philipe Gaspard, who has worked for United for 20 years, is a native of Haiti and has a brother and sister who still live there. He said he wanted to lend a hand and then found out his company was planning to help the area.

"The first thing I did when I heard about the earthquake is e-mail the company and ask what I can do and what we can do," he said.

"It's beyond imagination," he said of the devastation in Haiti, but added, "Everybody is pitching in. It's taking shape down there."

Another United employee on the flight returned to the U.S. with her two young nephews from Haiti.

The volunteers who took Wednesday's flight included Seth Teske, a nurse at Illinois Masonic Hospital in Chicago.

"A doctor came upstairs and said he's putting together a team to go to Haiti, and I couldn't say no," Teske said.

A nurse for two years, Teske said it was his first opportunity to put his training to use to help people in such dire need.

The United plane was staffed by volunteers, from the pilots to the flight crew to employees who helped unload supplies. The company does not normally fly into Haiti and does not have a flight crew on the ground there.

"This is a very special flight," flight attendant Meg Mikesell of Glenview announced to the passengers as the mission left Chicago Wednesday morning. "It's an honor to have all these groups on board."

• Daily Herald Staff Writers Barbara Vitello and Anna Marie Kukec contributed to this report