It has even more problems than you think:
Mr. Sinclair said that design and construction were far worse than in other developing countries he had visited. “In Haiti, most if not all of the buildings have major engineering flaws,” he said.
Most houses and other structures are built of poured concrete or block, there being very little lumber available due to mass deforestation, said Alan Dooley, a Nashville architect who designed a medical clinic, built of reinforced concrete, in Petite Rivière de Nippes, a fishing village 50 miles west of Port-au-Prince.
Concrete is very expensive – much of the cement for it comes from the United States, Mr. Dooley said – so some contractors cut corners by adding more sand to the mix. The result is a structurally weaker material that deteriorates rapidly, he said. Steel reinforcing bar is also expensive, he said, so there is a tendency to use less of it with the concrete.
Building codes are limited or nonexistent, so columns and other elements made from concrete are often relatively thin, designed without proper margins of safety. “We would double the design strength, just to give it a factor of safety,” Mr. Dooley said, referring to practices in the United States. “There they’d design it to what it would hold.”
Concrete blocks are often substandard too, said Peter Haas, executive director of Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group, a nonprofit organization that is working on several projects in Haiti. Many of them are made in small batches at people’s homes, and the quality can vary. “When you’re buying blocks at the store you really have no idea of where they’re from,” Mr. Haas said. “And all it takes is for the block that was made at home to collapse.”
Some of the improvements we’ve seen in Mexico over the last quarter of a century might trace in part to the Mexican public’s reaction to the revelations of all the corner-cutting made obvious by the terrible 1985 Mexico City earthquake.
Maybe a little good might eventually come of this? We can only hope …
This sounds like further support for Diamond’s deforestation arguments in Collapse…
My dad is an engineer working in Haiti, or I should say, trying to establish a company in Haiti. However, since he does not have the political connections that bigger firms have, he hasn’t had the contracts to be a viable company. If he had, I can bet you, that most of his buildings would be up to par to what you find in developed nations. There are thousands of small businesses run by former expats in Haiti, but since they do not grease the hands of politicians, they are in the same boat as my dad. So, how is construction suppose to get better when its the same engineers who did a shoddy job in the first place, getting all the contracts?
At least the buildings are not like this bridge in China…
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2419800/posts
A friend of mine went on a trip to Haiti and came back with an interesting observation. He stayed in the homes of some wealthy Haitians. He noticed that no matter how big or grand the homes, there were many small instances of poor craftsmanship that he noticed. The example that sticks out in my mind is a long 2×4 installed as a handrail in a very nice home. He asked (discretely) about it and was told that there is such a lack of skilled craftsmen in Haiti that it was less a matter of having the money to spend than of finding someone who was even minimally capable.
Now extrapolate that down the scale and imagine.
What needs to be done – physical infrastructure, social structure, agrarian reform, conservation/remediation of the environment, other – would require an autocratic occupation the world last saw in Japan during the MacArthur shogunate. Any bets on that occurring?
HUH?
What about Iran, Singapore, Taiwan, ROK, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, China, and dozens of other places…. Two have become democratic within the past two decades, but still long after Japan, and not as a result of the US promoting democracy there. And in the case of Iran, the US has opposed its democracy for more than three decades, pushing it back to authoritarian rule.
The US has supported and installed authoritarian rule in Haiti multiple times to promote the interests of US corporations who have no interest in Haiti having good infrastructure.
Construction should be done with proper equipment. Here we can get them from scissor lifts rental but in Haiti, they patch up with whatever they can find. That is why their buildings have so many construction flaws.
I was offered a job by a Haiti construction company as a bathtub remodeling worker. But after reading about their hazardous conditions and lack of construction standards I’m not even considering accepting their offer.
I went to some cabinets Tucson, a friend of mine, recommended. He told me that he was once in this strange situation as well. He said that the buildings’ lower quality increase the companies’ profits.
My heart goes out to Haiti and all they have had to endure. They really do need better construction and decent quality concrete is especially important for a stable foundation. Let’s hope that by putting their situation out in view of everyone we can get them some help.
When you are constructing a building you need to do it right.That’s why companies hire specialized personnel.If you don’t do it right you better don’t do it at all.I payed my brother a visit this days because he had his apartment renovated.And I must say that the people who worked there really knew what they were doing.After I saw his bathroom I decided to put Clearance bathroom vanities too.
I was wondering if Haiti will have a plumber service available with this new wave of constructions that will start. But anyways, as it seems there are lots of investors willing to invest capital in Haiti so I wouldn’t worry too much.
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