Carl’s friend attached herself to his pinky while he was covering a Red Cross distribution of household supplies.
Cameraman Carl Hersh in front of the Port-Au-Prince National Cathedral, now a ruin.
The day after the 7.0 earthquake rocked Haiti, Carl got called by Austrian television to cover the disaster. After scrambling for gear and some provisions, he was on a plane bound for the Dominican Republic. An overnight convoy from Santo Domingo wound through the mountainous border into Haiti and, finally, Port-au-Prince. The once vibrant city lay in ruins. The destruction and human suffering was so pervasive that it moved even this veteran of natural disasters and civil wars. Carl took up residence in a small Port-au-Prince hotel that was secure, had running water and electricity (at least, intermittently), but no phone nor internet. Communication the first few days was limited to text message updates. After nearly a week of filming and editing, including footage of mass burial sites too gruesome for broadcast, Carl’s assignment with the Austrians wrapped; however, he was asked by the American Red Cross to stay on and document their relief efforts. With literally millions of people in severe need, Carl was impressed by how the Red Cross focused supplies, managed sometimes huge, desperate camp populations to make sure the right support got to the people who really needed it. Now that the so-called “aid bottleneck” has been cleared and supplies are reaching the sick and distressed, Carl is back home with insights and kudos for his work. Despite the horrors, he is in good spirits, having rubbed elbows and comparing notes with the likes of Sanjay Gupta and Jesse Jackson. His diet was destinctly local: fresh mangoes, goat, and beer.
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