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NAVFAC Building Inspector Continues Work in Haiti

Navy NewsStand

Story Number: NNS100408-24
Release Date: 4/8/2010 7:01:00 PM

By Chief Mass Communication Specialist (SCW/EXW/SW/AW/SG) James G. Pinsky, Naval Facilities Engineering Command Public Affairs

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (NNS) -- Naval Facilities Engineering Command building inspectors are knee-deep in rubble in Haiti assessing the structural damage to thousands of Haitian buildings as the Navy provides sustained assistance for the recovery of the nation after the Jan. 12 earthquake.

Vince Sobash, a Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC) inspector, has told thousands of Haitians it was safe to come home - and still thousands more that they could never go back home again.

"Vince was very much the right man to lead a team like this," said Mike Helbling, Joint Task Force - Haiti J7's project manager, and a member of NAVFAC Headquarters. "He's extremely intelligent, caring, and makes every decision for the Haitians as if his own life depends on it – because other people's do."

Sobash is a structural engineer from NAVFAC Southwest who deployed to JTF-Haiti's J7 engineering team during NAVFAC's initial humanitarian wave in March. Assigned the daunting task of assessing the thousands of buildings damaged and destroyed by the 7.0 magnitude earthquake, Sobash lead a team of NAVFAC and Army Corps of Engineer professionals in a job that put the Department of Defense employees on both sides of the tragedy. They make recommendations for approximately 50 percent of the Port-au-Prince's structural owners that their buildings were safe to live in again.

Even then, some homeowners shied away from going back to the place where many endured, and survived the earthquake.

"I'm not offended," said Sobash. "I have science and engineering knowledge to help convince me that the building is safe. A lot of these Haitians watched their family and friends die in what they thought were safe places even after the earthquake was over. I understand why these people are scared. Still, I wouldn't say it was ok to go back in if I had even the slightest doubt that the building wasn't safe."

When you lose everything and have to start over, knowing its safe to begin again needs to come from more than someone who knows it's safe – it needs to come from someone who understands how the Haitians feel.

Feelings are something Sobash is just as educated in as engineering.

"He's calm all the time," said Helbling. "He never complains about anything. If you put a bunch of engineers in a room together long enough they'd find things to be critical about, complain about. It's our nature. But not Vince, no matter how bad our conditions were, no matter how tragic a day we had, Vince stayed calm and motivated. "In fact," Helbling added, " he almost shames people into not complaining because he is so positive in everything that he does."

No stranger to tragedy and triumph, Sobash goes about his business armed with experience derived from his prior work with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) on other colossal disasters like Hurricane Katrina.

His experience and persona made him a natural choice to lead JTF-Haiti J7's Haitian Building Assessor and Inspection Education Team - a program that empowered local Haitians to not only be directly involved in their community's recovery, but contribute to it economically as well.

"This program was fantastic," said Sobash. "The people who were taking the classes were committed and really motivated. When they're in the field they're energetic and getting from house to house as quickly as they can, and they're communicating well with the residents too, which is something that is well beyond our expectations."

Sobash and his team of engineers conducted numerous classes that resulted in the certification of more than 200 engineer-minded Haitian professionals who were now ready to make the one of the most anticipated decisions in a disaster survivor's life – going home.

"Vince was the right person to teach that class," said Helbling. "He not only made sure the students knew how to be a building assessor, but he made sure they could do the job – all of it. He knows what impact his decisions have."

For more news from Naval Facilities Engineering Command, visit www.navy.mil/local/navfachq/.