Rubble Removal

Rubble Removal

I started out the day moving material to the block layers like sand and gravel, cement, mixers and block.  The loader worked great moving the large volume stuff and the skidsteer made short order of the block and small stuff that had to be moved in between the trees and buildings.  Robert, Francois and most of the crew moved down the beach about a quarter mile to start taking down a couple of houses that were wrecked in the earthquake.  When I got caught up with my chores, I moved the loader down to the site with Andre to watch.

Both houses were located on about an acre of land with many, many trees.  It made it difficult for Francois to locate the excavator into position to start on the first structure.  It was a house that ‘pancaked’ down when the earth shook.  These homes are all concrete block with concrete floors and roofs; sometimes 15 inches thick on top.  I don’t know why; they just are.  When the earth shook, this house didn’t have any supporting interior walls so the shaking ground moved the walls right out from under the roof; hence the pancaking of the house; in other words, the roof fell straight down to the ground taking everything with it.  It was hard to imagine a house underneath the huge concrete slab that had been the roof.  It was only two feet or so off the ground level.

Francois slowly started chipping away at the rubble pile.  Lots of rebar made it slow going at first as it needed to be separated from the columns and roof.  After he was able to make a rubble ramp and climb onto the top of the pile it went a little quicker as he could then pull the concrete sections up to him where they would snap and crumble.

As Francois worked on the first structure I took a walk around the second… it was still standing.  Large cracks sheared the walls from the roof to deep down the foundation.  Mortar covering the walls had chipped and peeled away in many places exposing the rebar and blocks.  The biggest problem with construction in Haiti is that the Haitians tend to use inferior materials along with overstretching the expensive but essential part.  In this case they use cement as sparingly as possible.  The block is made from a sandy material that has ocean salt in it.  When making the block they don’t pressure squeeze it to a high enough pound per square inch rating.  All these issues produce a concrete block that is heavy, but soft.  The mortar used also has many of these same components; overstretching the mortar with coarse and contaminated sand.  Consequently, when pillars, floors, walls and roofs are poured the salt in the concrete immediately starts to corrode the rebar.  Over time it eats away at this critical support until there is nothing but rust holding the concrete together.  Add a quick shake and it all comes tumbling down.

I noticed all these traits in the house as I walked around it.  Underneath the stucco like mortar I scraped away the material between the blocks with my fingernail.  Some pillars had cracked and enough material fallen away so I could see what was suppose to be rebar; in this case it had corroded away to the thickness of a pencil lead.  Interior walls cracked exposing block laid on its side instead of the other way which is how it provides support.  I could understand why the structure cracked as bad as it did.  The only reason it didn’t pancake was because it had interior walls that ran in the direction of the seismic waves; that added enough support to keep the house up.

Francois loaded up two of our trucks with rubble and two of the crew took it quite a ways away to a recycle center that had started up after the new president got his act together.  The state wants all the rubble taken to one location where it supposed to be separated from the trash and metal rebar, then crushed up for stone.  They should have more than one location for that but don’t as yet.

Mono got a call from Robert saying that they needed some stuff moved around again around noon so Andre and I headed back to base with the loader.  It was fun driving along the beach dodging the boats, nets, clothes drying and animals in the large loader. 

But as for today, I had my first close look at the earthquake destruction.  It was hard to imagine the power that could do so much damage in such a short time over such a large area.