ABSTRACT
Do you remember where you were at 4:52 p.m. on January 12, 2010? I will never forget.
I was in Boston-in my dorm room to be exact-catching up on emails while watching CNN. A minute later, a powerful earthquake devastated the city of Port-au-Prince. I was paralyzed with shock and could barely breathe when the news hit CNN. Over 100,000 Haitians and humanitarians were feared dead, a number that would double in the days that followed. My wife could easily have been part of that statistic. She was doing research in Port-au-Prince at the time and was due back in Boston the next day. I called and texted her cell phone; I sent her emails and looked for her on Skype and social media. While I found dozens of Haitians and expats describing the devastation live on Twitter and Facebook, there was no sign of her anywhere on social media. Only after midnight did I finally get an SMS from Haiti. She and our friends were alive; they had narrowly escaped a collapsing building. Few in Haiti were as lucky as dozens of aftershocks claimed more lives through the night.
