This post is part of a series called Miyamoto in Myanmar YANGON, Myanmar–We flew from Bangkok to Yangon, Myanmar on Monday morning. Once there we were greeted by Twe Twe and Nang. They took us to lunch before visiting the Myanmar Engineering Society. We stopped at a local place, they let me sample the goat brains to see if I would like it as my main course. It seemed every meal we had during this trip was accompanied with mango, which was great for an avid fruit eater like myself. The mango I had today was sweet and had hints…
This post is part of a series called The 2013 L'Aquila Earthquake TIVOLI, Italy–I arrive at Tivoli on April 13th after a 15 hour KLM flight from Tokyo, where I was on vacation with my family and doing research at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. I met up with an Italian engineer, Ilbe Salvaterra, from our partner company, Global Risk Consultants at the Rome airport at 9:30 pm. It is always nice to have a good local engineer on our reconnaissance team to investigate a disaster area. Ilbe rented a car and we drove to the town of Tivoli. This…
This post is part of a series called Miyamoto in Haiti Waking up in post-earthquake Haiti has challenges and opportunities. We’re here to help rebuild in a safe and sustainable manner. Today there are two sides of that great task that faces us, the Haitian people, the United Nations, and the international community, as a whole. This morning, two government representatives came by our Petionville house. One is a senior official and the other is an adviser to President Rene Preval. Our discussion turns to a topic of great importance: schoolchildren. I sit with my colleagues Lon and Guilaine as…
This post is part of a series called Miyamoto in Haiti Believe me, that was the hard way. But looking back, it was one of the best decisions we had ever made. We selected 16 contractors and trained them in technology and business. We specified materials from local suppliers—Haitian-made. Contractors hired masons from the pool that we had trained. These folks eventually repaired an average yellow-tagged house in four days using a four-person team, which was overseen by an MTPTC engineer as per international standards. It cost about $2,000 per house total, which was less expensive than the infamous T-Shelters,…
This post is part of a series called Miyamoto in Haiti The team of engineers assessed each house and marked it with a green, yellow or red tag. Teams also recorded detailed structural and social information using PDAs. We not only performed engineering tasks, but we also became counselors and social workers. People were beginning to return home to safe, green-tagged houses. The temporary camp population had decreased to 700,000 in late 2010. We figured that the amount of debris that existed in the country, based on the database that we had developed, was 8.9 million cubic meters (314 million…
This post is part of a series called Miyamoto in Haiti I just finished giving a speech at the Kinam Hotel in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The applause afterward left me with a good, warm feeling. I’d spoken to more than 100 attendees, including MTPTC (the Haitian Public Works Ministry) engineers, ministry directors, nongovernmental organization (NGO) partners and the media. This event was to celebrate the achievements of the MTPTC engineers since the 2010 earthquake. I have had probably more than 50 speaking engagements each year for the last several years, for many different types of audiences, and giving speeches has become…
