BY JULIE LANE |STAFF WRITER

Long dedicated to bringing supplies and manpower to the impoverished island of Haiti, Rotary members and a contingent from Mattituck Presbyterian Church were to leave the North Fork last Friday for the tiny island 400 miles from the U.S. mainland.

That was before last Tuesday's magnitude 7.0 earthquake changed their travel plans.

"We would only be getting in the way there," said George Solomon of Mattituck, a Riverhead Rotary member. He has made five or six trips to Haiti in recent years and worries about friends he knows there whose fate, in some cases, is still unknown.

"My skills are best used here," he said, while wishing he could be on the ground in Haiti helping to search for survivors. "I would love to be able to go and find friends and put my arms around them.

"We were all excited and ready to go down," he said of the group of nine that was headed to the island of LaGonave, west northwest of Port-au-Prince, to dedicate a new medical clinic.

While LaGonave was spared the worst of the earthquake's fury, Mr. Solomon said he has never seen anything like what he's seeing on television.

Structures in Haiti are mostly built of cement block that deteriorates in the salt air under normal circumstances, he said. He hopes that when rebuilding efforts can finally get under way, structures will be rebuilt using the latest earthquake-resistant technology being used in the U.S.

When the earthquake first struck, Mr. Solomon got a call from a man in Oklahoma City, hoping Rotary contacts might help locate a missing Oklahoman. Thanks to his connections at a Haitian hospital, Mr. Solomon was able to get word to the man's family that he had left the hospital and was all right.

Back home in the U.S., Mr. Solomon is working with Rotary and the Rev. George Gaffga of Mattituck Presbyterian Church to raise money to send to Haiti. As long as checks are marked for Haiti relief, 100 percent of the money Rotary collects will find its way to where it's needed on the ground, he said.

As with the 7.9 magnitude earthquake that struck China in May 2008, Rotary is sending shelter boxes, each containing a tent that sleeps 10 people, utensils, stoves and fuel, pots and pans and a six-month supply of water purification tablets.

As dire as the immediate need is, Mr. Solomon worries about the ongoing need that will remain months after this most recent disaster has faded from the headlines.

"We need people to keep giving," he said.

Similarly, Tom Christianson of New Suffolk, who has been making trips to Haiti since 1993 with the Rev. Gaffga and members of Mattituck Presbyterian Church, wishes he could be helping in Haiti. He was also among those who were to have left Friday, but are now dedicating their efforts to raising money at home.

"It's really tough not to be able to be there," Mr. Christianson said.

He fell in love with the beautiful island from the first time he set eyes on it. He even learned the French Creole dialect to communicate better with many of his newfound friends.

"There's no way to erase the tragic feelings of losing family and friends," he said. "But they're an extremely resilient race of people. They don't stand around and complain."

He hopes that as Haiti rebuilds, it can be made "safer and more livable."

Meantime, Mr. Christianson is consumed with worry that food and medical supplies are not finding their way to remote villages, and that fuel supplies are drying up. Some reports say fuel there now costs $10 a gallon, he said.

As Americans watch the reports from Port-au-Prince, it's hard for them to understand that the airport there has only a single runway with a tarmac that can handle only three planes unloading at a time, he said. Roads there were never the superhighways we know in the United States. Although some roads have been improved, they too sustained damage in last week's earthquake, he said.

"There's still a lot of fear" of tsunamis among Haitians due to experiences after hurricanes, he said.

While civilians probably won't be able to travel to Haiti until at least March, rescue workers and medical personnel are being welcomed from throughout the world.

Dr. Patricia Nicholas, a podiatrist from Wading River, left this week for the country where she was born and raised until she was 14.

"I could not see those images on the television and not go to Haiti," Dr. Nicholas said. "The need is so great."

Besides Rotary and Mattituck Presbyterian Church, doctors at Peconic Bay Medical Center contributed $5,000 to Doctors Without Borders to support medical relief efforts in Haiti, officials there said.

Churches and synagogues across the North Fork are also asking congregants to give to Haitian relief funds. Click here for a list of some addresses where contributions may be sent.

jlane@timesreview.com

Wading River couple's prayers answered

Their closest relatives in Haiti all survived earthquake

For days, Metuschela Alouidor and her husband Patrick of Wading River watched scenes of the devastation in their native Haiti, anxiously awaiting phone calls for word of whether relatives were dead or alive.

The first word wasn't good.

Cousins had perished in the magnitude 7.0 earthquake that struck last Tuesday. Despite that bad news, there was joy two days later when Mr. Alouidor found out that a missing brother was alive and well. Two days after that, his wife learned her parents and a brother were alive and safe.

A nurse at Peconic Bay Medical Center, Ms. Alouidor pushed herself to go to work during the ordeal. But she found it hard to hold back the tears.

When their 8-year-old daughter Lori saw her mother crying, she tried to comfort her, Ms. Alouidor said. While Lori, can't fully understand what has happened, there is the irony that -- just before the last week's earthquake -- mother and daughter were working on a school project about volcanos and earthquakes. (Lori, who was born in the U.S., has spent several years in Haiti with her parents and grandparents.)

Mr. Alouidor, an aide working with mentally challenged individuals, is about to start studying to become a nurse. He has spent his days feeling compelled to watch CNN but repelled by the awful scenes at places so familiar to him.

During their days in Port-au-Prince, where Ms. Alouidor was a university medical student, they shopped at a three-story market from which victims were rescued as late as Sunday. They have pictures of the place where they married 10 years ago, a structure that is now a ruin.

Ms. Alouidor's home village of Jacmel, southeast of Port-au-Prince, was devastated, but the pictures on television concentrated primarily on the capital city, Mr. Alouidor said.

"I was praying," Ms. Alouidor said, explaining what sustained her during the long hours of waiting for word of her family members.

"We had to support each other," her husband said.

The first news each got was of the death of cousins. "It tore my heart out," Mr. Alouidor said. At the same time, he acknowledged, "There have been so many miracles."

Ms. Alouidor learned later that when the earth began to shake and her mother begged to leave the house, her father was on his knees praying. Her parents' home was spared while structures on either side collapsed in the quake.

The Alouidors have heard from relatives that multitudes in the quake zone are afraid to re-enter houses that are still standing. Ms. Alouidor's parents, however, feel secure in their house, she said.

Another fear for many, Mr. Alouidor said, are the dangerous inmates who have escaped because the main prison collapsed. Access to a hospital that was not ruined by the quake, the hardest to have hit Haiti in more than 200 years, is blocked by bodies too numerous to be accommodated in the morgue, Mr. Alouidor said.

Both Alouidors said they would like to go to Haiti to be with their families and friends, but their responsibilities here make that unlikely, they said. They are grateful for the outpouring of money and support for Haiti from the American people and the government, Mr. Alouidor said. His respect for President Obama and former presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton has grown as he has watched them work together to raise money for the rescue and rebuilding effort.

"I'm more than sure the country will rebuild itself," Mr. Alouidor said. "Haitians are very resilient," he added, noting that, in 2008 alone, the island was hit by four hurricanes that caused serious damage.

"We trust in God," he said. "God has a plan and will open the doors."