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THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW - January 25, 2010
Haitian Radio Helps Keep a Country Afloat
by: Ioan Grillo
GlobalPost
Signal FM, a music radio station, survived the quake and
is helping others in the aftermath.
Port-au-Prince, Haiti - Radio presenter and DJ, Jean Gary
Apollon, had just put a new thumping track of Caribbean
bachata music on the air when the earth moved below this
sprawling seaside city.
For some 60 seconds he felt the building of his station
Signal FM sway back and forth like the bricks were made
of rubber.
But miraculously, the music never stopped.
"We were so used to power cuts here in Haiti that we had
built a special system for when the lights go out," he
explained, talking in his hectic studio. "Our diesel-run
generator switched on automatically."
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When the Jan. 12 tremor ceased, the crying and wailing
came from the street around, and he looked out the window
to see whole office blocks reduced to rubbles. But besides
having some equipment hurled around, the signal FM studio
was virtually unharmed.
The luck of being saved in the dark lottery allowed Signal
FM to be the only local media outlet broadcasting through
the first frantic days following the catastrophic quake
that devastated this Caribbean country.
Keeping itself on air, the station became a crucial source
of information that helped get thousands of people to
hospitals and back with their families. Now as Haiti faces
the Herculean task of reconstructing its shattered capital,
media outlets will have to play a central role in averting
the chaos and building a new order.
"Right after the quake, it was hard to think about keeping
the station going. We all wanted to just look for our
families and friends. It was so hard to comprehend the
enormity of the event," said Apollon, a lively radio
presenter in his 40s. "But we realized how important the
station would be. And we all did everything we could to
keep the signal up."
The electricity grid was down but residents heard Signal
FM on transistor radios and car stereos. Rapidly, hundreds
of people flocked to the station asking to get out calls
to their families.
The station reached out to lost relatives, allowing people
to know news of their loved ones and arrange places to
meet. Soon, thousands had found each other that way.
When the station regained internet connection, it also
started communicating with its many web listeners abroad
in the Haitian communities in the United States, Canada,
France and other countries.
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A tidal wave of emails swept in asking about loved ones,
and Signal FM relayed the message onto the shattered
streets of Port-au-Prince. Soon they were activating one
of the country's few fixed phone lines, and allowing an
endless stream of people to make heartfelt calls to their
families overseas.
"We became like a social center as well as a radio. But
it was the only thing to do in these circumstances," said
owner Mario Viau, who speaks perfect English, as well as
French and Haiti's Creole language.
The station also gave out life-saving information about
where there were field hospitals set up on the rubble-
strewn streets, where trucks were handing out water and
where shelters had been made for the homeless.
No newspapers were printing, so many of the journalists
came to the station and started relaying all the
information to Signal FM.
Viau said they tried frantically to get hold of government
officials on the day of the earthquake to allow President
Rene Preval to address his people. But they could not get
ahold of him anywhere.
Eventually, in the second day they got in touch with
Preval's aides who sent them a written statement from
him.
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"Preval has been an almost absent figure in this crisis,"
Viau said. "There has really hasn't been a Haitian
government since the earthquake. We have to have some
kind of international force in control in Haiti now."
His views are shared by many on the streets, who consider
Preval to have utterly failed in the face of the tragedy.
As Haiti plods on to its second week since the tremor,
Signal FM is focusing on the newly developing issues, such
as where the U.S. troops are deploying with food aid and
how city infrastructure is coming back.
The radio is also starting to look at what kind of Haiti
they can rebuild in the long term. "We have all been deal-
ing with the immediate problems. But eventually we will
have to face up to some big questions about our country,"
he said. "We don't just need to build new houses. We need
to build a new political system that actually works."
When most people are asked what stands out in their mind in
the first days following the quake, they mention the piles
of dead bodies, the wounded and the smashed up city. But
Viau has a different answer.
"It is the solidarity," he says. "I saw so many people
helping each other. That is what I remember most."
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