NORTH CHARLESTON - A gray Air Force C-17 carrying 54 U.S. nationals evacuated from Haiti landed in South Carolina Thursday as the government opened a third site for repatriating Americans after last month's devastating earthquake.
Americans are also being brought back through New Jersey and Florida. Officials don't know how many more may be brought through Charleston International Airport, although a second flight was to arrive about 1 a.m. today.
Fifteen on the Thursday flight had gone to Haiti to help in the aftermath of the quake. The evacuees got connecting flights or rental cars to get home, said Derrec Becker, a spokesman for the state Emergency Management Division.
"I'm good. I feel great" being back, said Joseph Lorrius, 70, of Mount Vernon, N.Y., a native of Haiti who waited 18 hours for the flight.
Lorrius, who spends his winters in Haiti, runs a club there that was destroyed in the Jan. 12 earthquake, killing two people.
Lorrius and three others survived, although one remained in the rubble two days before he could find someone to pay to help get the victim out.
"When the earthquake started, I thought I was dreaming," he said, adding he immediately found his Bible and prayed the 23rd Psalm. He said he might go back, but only when conditions improve.
Johny Farris of Henderson, Tenn., spent the last week in Haiti on a medical mission with people from his church. He worked mainly in triage in a hospital, helping treat injuries infected or not treated properly in the immediate aftermath of the quake.
His group brought its own food and ended up sharing it with those without.
"Wherever you go, they rub their belly and point to their mouth - the sign for hungry," said Farris, who said he waited 13 hours for the flight.
Pazaune Pearson of Washington, D.C., arrived a few days after the quake and immediately went to work in a hospital intensive care unit. She said she spent time giving patients food and water, and changing them so they didn't get bed sores.
"I did all those basic things you don't need a medical education to do - you just need a head and two hands," said the 23-year-old event planner.
No one on the Thursday flight needed medical attention, said Dr. Kathryn Arden, a public health doctor with the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control.
"We have had a lot of people who had difficulty traveling - they have been in stressful situations and may be out of their medications and not eaten in some period of time," she said.
Those on the flight were Americans who had family in Haiti and were visiting at the time of the earthquake or were there helping in the aftermath, she said.
Gov. Mark Sanford announced Wednesday that South Carolina would be a repatriation point and that some of the state's hospitals later might receive more seriously injured victims of the earthquake.
It's not the first time Charleston has served as a repatriation point for Americans. The area served in a similar role after a hurricane hit El Salvador in 1998. And in 1990, hundreds of U.S. evacuees were brought in from war zones in Kuwait and Liberia. In 1983, almost 700 civilians were brought to Charleston during a four-day evacuation after the U.S. invasion of Grenada.
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