Sat, 16 Jan 2010 8:44p.m.
By Mike McRoberts
Filed Saturday 16 January
The Sanson family.
Today was one of those days when it’s difficult being a journalist.
We’ve been en route to Haiti to cover the catastrophic effects of the earthquake and ended up travelling with Roger and Rachel Sanson who lost three family members who were killed when the hotel they were living in collapsed.
We’ve sat with them on the plane, in an Air New Zealand staff room in LA and again at Miami airport. We’ve watched as they tried to track down Emily and Alyhana, and when confirmation came through that Emily’s husband Emmanuel and daughters Kofie and Zenzie were dead.
Today we were with Roger and Rachel again at Miami airport as they waited on Emily and Alyhana who were flying in from the Dominican Republic.
It was a heart wrenching reunion.
The family has been incredibly generous to us in what has been, as Roger described it, a trip from hell.
We felt their pain today and shared their grief. They are not the easiest images to capture without feeling like you are intruding on a deeply personal moment.
We left them to grieve and in a few hours will be flying to the Dominican Republic. It seems the only way we’ll be able to get to Haiti. Once we touch down in Santo Domingo we’ll travel by road to Port au Prince. It’s about a 6 to 8 hour journey although no one seems to be completely sure about the state of the roads.
We’ve also been warned that the journey can be dangerous.
The images coming out of Haiti now show a new level of desperation from those survivors left without food and water and shelter. I wonder what we’ll find when we arrive.