HR&DC Press Coverage

Welcome to the Haiti Recovery and Development Company press coverage room. Here you’ll find press coverage about the Haiti Recovery and Development Company and our mission.

For media inquiries, specific content requests, or to arrange an interview with one of our staff experts, visit our media relations page.

The Haitian tragedy of America’s making

By J. Kelly Lange, Special to the Tampa Bay Times
Originally Published: March 8, 2018

Nearly 300,000 were already dead by the time I arrived in Haiti the first time. It was just after the January 2010 earthquake — the worst ever recorded there — had leveled the capital.

Before the dust had settled, Haiti was overtaken by U.S. governmental agencies and connected proxies of the U.S. government, including NGOs and well-connected consulting firms. I witnessed all of this firsthand, and I know where the bodies are buried, literally and figuratively. While the earthquake was a natural disaster of epic proportions, the greater tragedy is the willful misery inflicted upon the country through greed, mismanagement and high-minded biases.  Read the rest of The Haitian tragedy of America’s making here

Hello Cuba – Goodbye Hispaniola?

By J. Kelly Lange, Special

Originally published in the Tampa Tribune, TBO.com Sunday, August 23, 2015

If you admitted that you know little to nothing about the geopolitics of the Caribbean you wouldn’t be alone. Most Americans don’t. The same might be said about the United States government. For over 200 years, successive American administrations have intervened in this region, and their track record indicates they, too, find the geopolitics of the Caribbean mystifying.

Undaunted by past forays, the United States is back at it again, this time in dramatic fashion. Read more

Haiti’s mass, unmarked graves five years later

The Tampa Tribune and TBO.com

By J. Kelly Lange, Special

Originally published in the Tampa Tribune, TBO.com Wednesday, March 15, 2015

The earthquake occurred at 4:53 p.m. Jan. 12, 2010. Dusk comes early in January. On the 12th, darkness came early — and with brute force.

Throughout the terrifying first night, able-bodied survivors blindly clawed their way through the rubble in search of family members, friends or to the cries of the trapped and dying. Some died in the search process. Some wished they had.

At first light the carnage and loss of life came fully into view. Piles of bodies were everywhere, and over the next few days the piles became mounds that stretched for blocks.

Close to 300,000 Haitians died in the earthquake. If being crushed to death wasn’t a cruel enough fate, most of the victims found their way into the back of dump trucks and were unceremoniously bulldozed into burial pits just north of Haiti’s capital, Port au Prince.

If you thought things couldn’t get any worse for the victims and their grieving loved ones, you’d be wrong… Read more

USF students to help rebuild Haitian cities

The Oracle: University of South Florida

By Krystal Modigell, CORRESPONDENT

Published: Wednesday, September 14, 2011 | Updated: Wednesday, September 14, 2011 01:09

A local organization will attempt to rebuild Haitian cities affected by a major earthquake in 2010, and they are using USF students to do it.

Recruited students will help design blueprints for rebuilding five cities in Haiti. Their work will also aid the Haitian economy, which “suffered a severe setback” when an earthquake struck the island in 2010, according to the CIA website…. Read more

Haiti’s Sacred Ground

J. KELLY LANGE Special Correspondent – Tampa Tribune
Published: November 21, 2010 | Updated: March 22, 2013 at 02:06 AM

“Friends, though absent, are still present.” – Cicero

On January 18, 2010, less than a week after Haiti’s cataclysmic earthquake, 60 Minutes ran a story that changed the course of my life. In the segment, “The Tragedy of Haiti,” an untold number of dead Haitians were scattered about the landscape; some were stacked like human lumber, some were heaped together in the scoop of a backhoe and dropped into the back of a waiting dump truck. We were subsequently told they were heading to a mass grave outside of town. I was saddened and sickened – my heart became as broken as the mangled bodies waiting their turn…. Read more

Where is Haiti’s Marshall Plan?

April 4, 2010 – Tampa Tribune   –  J. KELLY LANGE Special to the Tribune

At 4:53 p.m. Jan. 12, all was calm in Haiti. At 4:55 p.m., 300,000 Haitians were dead or badly injured, and millions were left homeless after the deadliest earthquake ever to hit the region.

If the human toll wasn’t catastrophic enough, 70 percent of Haiti’s permanent structures were destroyed. This is a tragedy of epic proportions…. Read more