Clemson University students heading to Haiti to help remote village

Published: March 11, 2010

Clemson engineering students measure the dam at Cange during their 2009 visit to Haiti. image by: Clemson Engineers for Developing Countries

CLEMSON — Four Clemson University civil engineering students will travel to earthquake-ravaged Haiti March 13 to assess needs in Cange, a remote village in the central plateau about a two-hour drive from Port-au-Prince. 

Engineering students visited Cange twice in 2009 to develop a plan for a water treatment and distribution facility, which the village needs more than ever as its remote American-run hospital treats patients hurt in the Jan. 12 earthquake that was centered near Port-au-Prince.

"Seeing Port-au-Prince and Cange first-hand, even before the disaster it was in rough shape. Now I can’t even imagine," said Jeff Plumblee, a civil engineering graduate student and president of Clemson Engineers for Developing Countries. “Luckily Cange was relatively undamaged. There was no severe damage to the people or buildings.”

Haiti President Rene Preval met with President Barack Obama and Congress this week to discuss Haiti’s most-pressing needs. The students will address several issues topping Preval’s list, including clean water initiatives, during their visit to Cange.

The students will inspect construction work on a dam in Cange and will meet with the leaders of an Italian construction company charged with re-building a national highway in the village.

“The students also will present to decision-makers ideas for a new community fountain, create a master plan using GPS units to determine both freshwater- and wastewater-piping layouts and measure elevation for designing new water pumps,” Plumblee said.

Civil engineering professor Lansford Bell is the faculty adviser for the Clemson Engineers for Developing Countries. He says women in the village now haul water in buckets on their heads up an 800-foot incline at the dam.

“That’s what they do all day long just to sustain themselves, so that puts a little urgency on us being able to pump clean water 800 feet up a hill,” Bell said.

Clemson civil engineering students Stanley Mack, Tripp West, David Lowe and Adam Deik will work in Cange until March 16. Lowe and West will travel to La Gonave, an island off the coast of Haiti, to investigate another possible project. They plan to return to Clemson March 20.

END

News directors, Webmasters: Contact Wanda Johnson at wj@clemson.edu for a downloadable version of video.