Within minutes of January’s Haiti earthquake, which killed more than 200,000 people, CNN began covering the story. Within 24 hours, and before most military and relief organizations arrived, CNN had eight reporting teams—34 people—on the ground, with more on the way.
The earthquake that occurred in Haiti 6 months ago devastated the country. It destroyed many of the nation’s buildings, homes, banks, and ATM machines. This natural disaster wrecked over one third of Haiti’s ATM machines and banks. However, even before the earthquake, less than one out of every 10 Haitians had ever used a traditional bank.
Husband and wife tried not to let tension seep into their last days together. On Jan. 4, he would leave the family home in Queens for Haiti, where he was working to reduce deaths from natural disasters — not just the hurricanes that Haitians have come to expect, but also a threat he believed was bigger, if less well known: earthquakes. She begged him not to go.
