Deseret News in Haiti: Hill AFB reservists to get airport organized

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Fifteen Hill Air Force Base reservists landed at the chaotic Port-au-Prince Airport on Friday evening with a singular mission: to make order out of chaos.

Members of the 419th Fighter Wing's 67th Aerial Port Squadron are experts at organizing airports. And the one in this earthquake-ravaged country has been anything but since Jan. 12.

The reservists found a half dozen jumbo jets lined up outside the empty terminal, while about the same number of helicopters dotted the grass infield along the runway. Cars, military trucks and people on foot traversed the tarmac between planes.

The air traffic control center was empty. Air Force personnel guide aircraft from the infield. Large tents crammed with metal folding chairs serve as a processing center for people leaving the country. The smell of acrid smoke from a fire in the city center wafted over the airport.

"We're going to get the airfield operational," said Tech Sgt. Candace Arbogast, a six-year Air Force veteran who recently earned a master's degree in social work at the University of Utah.

That means establishing a forward operating base, or FOB, where airplanes like their C-17 carrying relief supplies will be directed for orderly unloading as air traffic ramps up to help Haitians still in dire need. The squadron also will assist with the transport of Americans, and possibly injured Haitian refugees and children to the United States.

"If it goes on or off that plane, we'll be doing it, whether it's passengers, supplies or vehicles," Arbogast said.

Since the start of the Haiti Flight Operations Coordination Center, safe arrival capacity has increased to 145 per day, the Air Force said.

The 67th squadron Friday unloaded a monstrous pallet hauler and a hulking forklift along with plastic crates packed with tents from their C-17 as darkness settled over the stricken city.

Members of a Florida-based medical team made their way though the processing tents for a flight to Orlando, among them registered nurse Rachelle Augustin, who lamented the lack of medical supplies.

"We lost a baby today because we didn't have a crash cart," Augustin said. "She died for no reason."