By STEPHEN BARTLETT
PLATTSBURGH — Candice Perkins was sitting on the porch of her aunt's house in Haiti talking to her grandmother when the floor started shaking.
The Plattsburgh State student's grandmother pushed her to the parking lot as Perkins screamed, asking herself, "What is this?"
"It shook for 45 seconds," the 23-year-old said.
VAST DESTRUCTION
The 7.0-magnitude earthquake, with an epicenter about 16 miles west of Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital, devastated the area at 4:53 p.m. local time, Jan. 12.
It affected an estimated 3 million people, with 180,000 confirmed deaths and up to 200,000 estimated lives lost, as well as roughly 300,000 injured and about 1.2 million left homeless.
Approximately 250,000 residences and 30,000 commercial buildings collapsed or were severely damaged in the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.
Perkins, raised in Haiti by her Haitian mother, arrived in the country Dec. 13 to visit family.
She was at her aunt's house with her boyfriend, grandmother and cousins when destruction consumed her world.
"Cell phones stopped working, and there was no way to contact anyone," she said. "Everyone was frantic."
Houses reduced to rubble littered main roads.
Rumors of a tsunami pushed people to seek higher ground, but travel was impossible, and Perkins ended up sleeping in a car.
SURVIVING THE STREETS
Survivors scattered throughout Port-au-Prince also slept in the streets, on pavement and in makeshift shanty towns.
Shaken, with aftershocks hitting every 30 to 45 minutes, Perkins found little sleep that night. She woke at dawn to wander with a camera and capture what remained of Port-au-Prince.
As she walked the streets, voices under the rubble pleaded for help.
"There was no help and no police and no rescue teams," Perkins said. "Everybody was overwhelmed."
Dead bodies littered the streets. Perkins turned from the macabre images but could not erase them from her mind.
Everywhere, people screamed anguish, fear and sorrow amid buildings that no longer existed.
"My great-aunt's house I grew up in was destroyed," Perkins said.
She spent the second night in the house she had fled from with her grandmother. The structure hadn't collapsed but was severely damaged.
"Every day after that you just tried to help people," Perkins said.
Tremors kept any hint of peace from entering her mind, as Perkins, always prepared to run, took note of the lack of food and gas the first few days.
At the same time, she noticed pockets of solidarity in the chaos as strangers joined together in tragedy.
"We opened our doors for people to come sleep."
On the streets, survivors held each other up as they sought refuge, some carrying those who could not walk.
"It brought us closer together," Perkins said. "We were picking ourselves up slowly."
Resilient
But as people grew hungry and the distribution of resources occurred at a snail's pace for some, people began to loot and sporadic violence broke out.
The dead found new resting places in mass graves, and decomposing bodies stained the nostrils of those left behind.
"So many people lost family and friends," Perkins said. "It was bad news after bad news after bad news."
By the following week, markets began to open for brief periods of time, and Perkins noticed strength grow from misery.
"People were not giving up," she said. "They are resilient."
Perkins found her own power and turned to it when hopelessness threatened to overtake her.
"I just said, 'I am OK, and there is somebody out there who is not,'" she said. "Some people are dead, and I am alive."
Leaving proved an emotional struggle, but on Jan. 24 Perkins caught a bus to the Dominican Republic and a day and a half later found herself back in the United States and eventually the North Country.
"I don't know when I will be able to go back and help, but at least I know my family is safe," Perkins said. "We will rebuild, and we will come out stronger because of it."
E-mail Stephen Bartlett at: sbartlett@pressrepublican.com
