‘I thought I’d lost you’: Kansas City husband, wife survived earthquake in native Haiti
She heard it before she felt it.
Lying in her hotel bed in Les Cayes, Haiti, the morning of Aug. 14, Myrlanne Douyon heard beeping coming from the street below. She’d gotten up to pray, as she does every morning. Why was construction going on so early, she asked herself.
Then the shaking started.
Douyon, 52, has lived in Kansas City since 2001. But she grew up in Les Cayes, which is about 25 miles from the earthquake’s epicenter. It’s where she went to school, where she met her husband, where her parents still live. Douyon visited Haiti in 2011, a year after a devastating earthquake killed more than 220,000 people. She hadn’t been back since.
She and her husband, Kenol, decided to take a vacation a few weeks ago. Her mother lives alone and had been sick. Douyon is a nurse and figured she could help care for her mother.
“That morning in her hotel room the shaking was intensifying. It was as if the entire room was shaking, she said. Instead of running downstairs to the first floor, Douyon decided to stay on the third floor.
“I was scared but not worried enough to run because I was on the third floor,” she said. “An earthquake, usually the bottom floor will go first, so I said, ‘I’m staying on the top floor.’”
She still doesn’t know how long it lasted, but it felt like some five minutes, she said. When it was over, she grabbed her phone. Kenol Douyon had left to go on a run before the earthquake hit. He was driving back to the hotel when he heard people screaming and saw buildings collapsing. One of the tires on the car was punctured as the ground shifted everything around him. That didn’t matter. He needed to drive back to the hotel.
The couple were lucky; they didn’t lose any family and suffered no major injuries in a 7.2 magnitude earthquake that to date has taken the lives of some 2,200 people and left thousands more without shelter or other resources.
“I thought I’d lost you,” he told his wife as soon as he found her at the hotel and not simply hugged, but squeezed her close to him.
In the moments after the earthquake, Douyon kept trying to call and reach her sister. She needed to make sure she was alive. Same with her mother. As they drove around the city, they saw what the earthquake had done: Two-story houses had been turned to one-story ruins. People flooded the streets. They were afraid to go into buildings out of fear that an aftershock would happen and the structure would collapse on top of them. Families huddled together under trees.
Haiti’s most recent earthquake adds to the tragedies the country has endured in the last decade. The 2010 earthquake devastated the island, causing at least $7.2 billion in damage. In 2016, Hurricane Matthew hit Haiti as a Category 4 hurricane, bringing with it torrential rain and 145 mph winds. The most recent earthquake came about a month after Haiti’s president was assassinated.
“I know so many are asking God, ‘Why, why me? Why Haiti has to go through so much?’” Douyon said. “Because of my Christian view, I don’t ask that question, but so many (are) asking that.”
Haitians in transition
Douyon is one of about 1,500 Haitians living in Kansas City, according to Census data. She’s seen the population grow consistently over the years, she said.
“We don’t have Haitian people like Miami, New York, Chicago, Boston,” said Idalbert Joseph, CEO and founder of Glory House Services, a Haitian support group in Kansas City. “The Haitian population here is very small.”
Joseph founded Glory House Services in 2007 because when he moved to Kansas City in 2000, he didn’t speak English very well. There also wasn’t anyone for him to speak Haitian Creole with. He didn’t know where to go to get his driver’s license or buy groceries.
“I didn’t have any Haitians to help me with this and I don’t want Haitians coming here, after me — they have the same issues,” Joseph said. “That’s why (I started) GHS, to help other Haitians in transition when they come here.”
Glory House Services helps Haitians who have just arrived in Kansas City adjust to living in a new country and city. They help new families know how to get their kids enrolled in area schools, from elementary to high school. If they need to learn how to speak English, Glory House Services will help them sign up for classes at The Don Bosco Centers.
Joseph is originally from Northern Haiti. He remembers the challenges he faced in Kansas City in the first few months. Since he didn’t speak English, he communicated with gestures.
He found community at First Haitian Baptist Church of Kansas City, which is located in Independence. For Haitians, the church has always been an important institution, serving as a place where they could get educated and fed. At First Haitian Baptist Church, one of several Haitian churches in the metro, the sermon is given in Haitian Creole. About 70 to 80 people show up to the service on Sunday. Everyone knows everyone.
“We have several churches where we can meet all the Haitians,” Joseph said. “If you have (a) Haitian family and something is happening at the church, it’s the best way where you can meet the Haitians in Kansas City. If we have a wedding or a festival, we all are going to meet together. We’re going to see each other.”
How you can help Haiti
Douyon and Kenol came back to Kansas City last week. But since they’ve been back, they haven’t stopped thinking about Haiti. Kenol said he couldn’t fall asleep a few nights ago because he kept thinking about the people living on the streets.
A few days after the earthquake, Tropical Storm Grace rolled through the island, dropping at least 10 inches of rain across the area, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Douyon and Kenol saw how people had been sleeping in the streets, too afraid to sleep inside their houses out of fear an aftershock would collapse it, crushing them. People put blankets and comforters on the sidewalk and the roads. Some streets were so crowded that it was impossible to drive down them.
But even when Grace’s rains pounded the island, people chose to sleep on the streets. The playing field at the main soccer stadium in Les Cayes has turned into a home for several hundred Haitians. People staying in tents made out of thin blankets tied to sticks. Sleeping on muddy ground.
There is a lack of tents for people in Haiti, Douyon said. While food and water is important and a necessity, so is shelter.
“But now the most important thing for them they need, it’s a place to sleep, like a tent,” Douyon said.
Glory House Services is accepting donations and items and you can contact them if you have questions on how to donate. First Haitian Baptist Church of Kansas City will hold an event Sunday, Aug. 29, where they will sell cooked food people can buy. The proceeds will go to helping Haiti and getting resources to the people in need. People can also contact First Haitian Baptist Church of Kansas City if they want to know how else to donate to Haiti.
There are other national and international organizations where you can donate to Haiti as well.
- Hope for Haiti is a nonprofit organization and is accepting donations. You can donate here.
- Partners in Health is a nonprofit organization that delivers healthcare to places the desperately need it. They are accepting donations here.
- ShelterBox is an international nonprofit that provides emergency shelter to families affected by tragedy. They are accepting donations here.
This story was originally published August 26, 2021 at 8:04 AM.
