Bunker Hill responds to remote Haitian island - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

Bunker Hill responds to remote Haitian island

SAN DIEGO — One day after arriving off Haiti’s coast to join in the massive U.S. military relief operation, guided missile cruiser Bunker Hill got its first major mission Wednesday from a desperate e-mail.

The massive Jan. 12 earthquake that’s killed more than 100,000, toppled countless buildings and damaged vital infrastructure has led thousands of scared and injured Haitians to flee by boat to La Gonave, a mountainous island that sits 20 miles west of Port-au-Prince.

In the small coastal town of Pointe-a-Raquettes, a Catholic missionary priest named Father Roosevelt Leriche had issued a call for help. More than 2,000 people displaced from their own towns ashore had inundated the town of 3,000 already suffering from a lack of drinking water, food and medical supplies, Leriche told friends with a Michigan-based religious group. The request for help reached the Navy, and Rear Adm. Ted Branch, Carl Vinson Carrier Strike Group’s commander, handed the mission to Capt. Dominic DeScisciolo. DeScisciolo, who commands Bunker Hill, contacted the priest and got a list of needed supplies.

“Our response, of course, was to send in our ship’s boats,” DeScisciolo said, speaking by telephone Friday from Bunker Hill as the ship sailed near the island. After several site surveys to establish beach and helicopter landing zones ashore, sailors in boat teams have shuttled food, medical supplies and fresh water the ship produced to the island.

“We used up pretty much all of our ship’s supply,” the captain said, adding a new supply list provided to Carl Vinson was filled the following morning.

By boat and by helicopter over two days, the ship’s crew had distributed more than 1,100 meals and 2,200 gallons of water, he said, and its small medical team led by Chief Hospital Corpsman Carletus Patrick had treated seven critically injured patients, including four flown to Carl Vinson for more advanced medical care.

“We are making a difference here, one village at a time,” DeScisciolo said.

Residents were relieved to see the arrival of sailors and food, water, medicine and supplies, including bandages, syringes, IV solution and morphine, he said, and they joined in to help distribute supplies and help the injured.

“They had been watching the helicopters go by for days now, and the ships. They were wondering if the world had sort of passed them by,” he said.

Bunker Hill sailors provided diesel fuel to power the town’s generator, which also provided electricity to the town’s small medical clinic that had been overwhelmed by the wounded. A team of engineers, including Lt.jg Ernie Thompson and Electrician’s Mate 1st Class Omar Gonzalez, also went ashore and repaired a broken well pump, which once supplied the town with underground water, he said.

From the air, Pointe-a-Raquettes and the island of La Gonave appeared as a “primitive” town, with “more donkeys than cars,” DeScisciolo said. Even 10 days after the quake, “a steady stream of boats” has been leaving Port-au-Prince, some arriving on La Gonave.

On Thursday, Bunker Hill spotted a small boat with a U.S. flag hanging upside down — a sign of someone in distress — and DeScisciolo thought perhaps the three people in the boat were Americans. No, they were Haitians relaying a message from the island: “The water is running out, people are starving and people are very sick.” The men, offered food and water, took only the water and wanted only help for other people, the skipper said.

“Just in two days alone, we’ve learned a lot, and we have a lot to contribute,” he said.