By Katie Curley Katzman
NEWBURYPORT — Lisa Gallagher's phone has been ringing off the hook with calls from concerned friends and family who know her husband, Dan Gallagher, is currently in Haiti.
The couple's company, Hawtan Leathers LLC, has locations in the Newburyport Industrial Park and Mariani, Carrefour, on the northern coast of Haiti.
"He was right at the epicenter," Gallagher, of Boxford said yesterday.
Named Cuirs Hawtan, S.A., outside the U.S., the couple bought the 30-year-old tannery six years ago and make frequent trips to Haiti to do business. Hawtan Leathers, a manufacturer of fine leather, has been in business for more than 70 years.
Lisa Gallagher said her husband is lucky, considering the damage to the rest of the region. Dan Gallagher was riding in a car with Patrick McCaffrey, the plant manager and a resident of Beverly Farms.
"He said he was driving to the hotel and the road began rocking, and they just kept driving, trying to dodge the debris," Gallagher said.
The magnitude-7 earthquake hit yesterday just before 5 p.m., centered near the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince while children were still in school, leaving a landscape of collapsed buildings: hospitals, schools, churches, ramshackle homes, even the national palace.
Early estimates are that more than 100,000 lives may have been lost and even more people were left homeless, prompting pledges of help from around the world for the Western Hemisphere's poorest country, which was still recovering from devastating storms in 2008.
Before Gallagher realized just how devastating Tuesday evening's quake was, she received a call from an employee in Haiti and then began repeatedly calling her husband. Eventually, she did get through and found out he was OK.
In an e-mail sent after the quake by her husband, he says: "We survived this nightmare! The tannery had virtually no damage, all generators, compressors, drums, fleshing machines, splitting, plumbing, we have."
"I can tell you this is a blessing based on the destruction this country has endured," he wrote.
Luckily for the Gallaghers, they have a satellite dish on the top of their tannery building that has allowed them to stay in contact via e-mail.
"There isn't any infrastructure in Haiti," Lisa Gallagher said, adding she and her husband spend about every other month in Haiti. "Something like this is totally devastating to the country."
She said the lack of electricity and poor roads make getting around and doing business in Haiti difficult to begin with. With most homes built without foundations, she said an earthquake like Tuesday's will cripple the country.
"Someone has to build it better than it was," Gallagher said.
Hawtan Leather isn't the only local organization with strong ties to Haiti. The Immaculate Conception Church in Newburyport has spent years fundraising and sending help to a hospital in the country.
Ipswich-based Partners in Development, which raises funds and has many volunteers in the Greater Newburyport area, operates a medical clinic in the country, often utilizing local volunteers. That agency is currently seeking volunteers to go to Haiti and help in the relief effort.
"It's really scary," said Lisa Lassey, director of program development for PID. "We have staff down there, and we haven't heard from them. There are a few people from Haiti living in this area, and they haven't been able to contact their families either."
Yesterday, the organization set up a donation link on their Web site, and volunteers will begin going to Haiti on Sunday.
"We are trying to coordinate a team to assist," Lassey said. "We are looking for medical professionals and experienced travelers to join us."
PID operates a medical clinic in Haiti and hopes to get donations of medical supplies they can bring down.
"Financial donations will go to food and supplies as needed," Lassey said. "We need to get down there and assess the situation."
Lassey said anyone with gauze, bandages, antibiotics or pain relief medication can bring it to their Ipswich office this week.
The Red Cross has also mobilized their volunteers and is sending over $1 million and supplies to the area.
Newburyport-based Immaculate Conception Haiti Organization, which worked with a hospital 75 miles from Port-au-Prince, is also organizing to expedite donations.
"The people we work with at St. Boniface Haiti Health Foundation are OK," organizer Miriam McNabb said. "Since they are a hospital, they will be sending people down the mountain to Port-au-Prince to help."
McNabb, who has gone to Haiti with the organization, says Port-au-Prince is extremely depressed to begin with, and she can't imagine what the region looks like today.
"I can't even believe it," McNabb said. "There couldn't be a worse place to have an earthquake."
McNabb said people in Port-au-Prince live on top of one another in makeshift homes.
"There is no building inspector," McNabb said. "They do their own construction, and it is so overcrowded. People often live in one room and take turns sleeping in shifts."
McNabb said when she was there, a three-story school collapsed without warning.
"There is so much debris around, I just can't imagine," McNabb said.
IC-Haiti hopes to send local donations to the hospital, which will then give the donations to grass-roots organizations, which will distribute the funds quickly to organizations in the Haitian communities.
Gallagher said she is hopeful the port will open soon and the country will be able to rebuild. So far, she has heard from some of her 100 employees but not all.
"This is just devastating to us," Gallagher said. "We love the country and the people."
HOW TO HELP
Hawtan Leathers LLC
The Newburyport-based business is accepting clothing and supplies for those affected by the disaster in Haiti to give to the St. Rock Foundation. St. Rock is a free medical clinic run by doctors and nurses from Mass General and Beth Israel Hospitals. Contact Catherine Liberles at cliberles@comcast.net for more information of the St. Rock Foundation and the St. Rock Clinic.
Immaculate Conception-Haiti Organization
The organization, based at Newburyport's Immaculate Conception Church, is accepting donations. Please mark monetary donations to the attention of IC Haiti, Immaculate Conception Church, Newburyport. Donations will be collected then expedited to St. Boniface Hospital. The hospital will give the money to grass-roots Hatian organizations, which ensures the money will be given to those affected. Call Miriam McNabb for more details: 617-429-5169 or log on to the IC-Haiti Web site at www.ic-haiti.org
The Red Cross of Northeast Massachusetts
International Response Fund, which will provide immediate relief and long-term support through supplies, technical assistance and other support to help those in need. Donations can be sent to:
American Red Cross of Northeast Massachusetts
Attn: International Response Fund
100 Cummings Center 207F
Beverly, MA 01915
Or made by phone at 978-922-2224 or online by going to http://www.northeastmassredcross.org and click on "donate." If this is for the earthquake in Haiti, be sure to include on the memo line: AP 2885 Haiti Relief and Development. Otherwise, use ARC International Response Fund in the memo line. The American Red Cross currently is not accepting any in-kind donation of goods and materials.
Salvation Army
The Salvation Army is mobilizing resources and personnel to assist with the international relief effort in Haiti.
The Army is accepting monetary donations to assist in the effort via www.salvationarmyusa.org, 1-800-SAL-ARMY and postal mail at: The Salvation Army World Service Office, International Disaster Relief Fund, PO Box 630728, Baltimore, MD 21263-0728. Designate donations "Haiti Earthquake."
