Is it because of the Code Red24?
"Rutland father holds out hope, asks for help" by John M. Guilfoil, Globe Staff | January 17, 2010
The father’s voice, full of joy and relief a few days ago when he shouted “she’s alive!’’ to a television news crew, was of a markedly different tone yesterday. He was given the wrong information, and yesterday, Leonard Gengel still did not know whether his daughter was alive.
Britney Gengel of Rutland, 19, is one of four Lynn University students who are unaccounted for in Haiti. The four were on a semester-long mission to feed the poor and are believed to be trapped beneath the rubble of the Hotel Montana building, which collapsed in Tuesday’s earthquake near the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince. The families of Britney Gengel, Stephanie Crispinelli, Christine Gianacaci, and Courtney Hayes flew to Florida last week on news that their daughters were rescued.
But on their way to meet them, they were told the information was incorrect and that the women were still missing. Speaking on Lynn University’s campus in Boca Raton yesterday, Leonard Gengel asked the public for their prayers and asked the government for help. “We have had, the four of us, one of the most dirty tricks that life could ever play on you,’’ Gengel said during a press conference that was recorded and provided to the Globe by the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
“To believe that this natural disaster had buried our daughters, and then to be told they were alive and on a helicopter and going to Port-au-Prince, and then to fly down here, every one of us, that night, and to be told they got bad intelligence from the people on the ground - we have hope. We have to believe,’’ he said.
The four students, eight others, and two faculty members were in the Caribbean as part of a program called Journey for Hope-Haiti, doing community service in one of the poorest nations in the hemisphere. The two professors were also missing as of late last night.
“These young ladies are young, intelligent, beautiful girls with their whole lives ahead of them,’’ Gengel said. Some of the Journey for Hope-Haiti students spoke to the media yesterday at a separate press conference. Lindsay Doran, 19, of Rumson, N.J., was Britney Gengel’s roommate for the trip. Doran said she went downstairs to the hotel gift shop around 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, but Gengel said she was tired and was going to take a nap in their room on the third floor. Doran guessed Gengel was either in bed or taking a shower when the quake struck.
“We became really good friends,’’ said an emotional Doran in footage provided by NECN. “She was awesome to go out with. I could always talk to her. So I’m praying that she’s going to be safe.’’
The Rev. Sam Dixon, head of the United Methodist Church’s humanitarian relief agency, died before he could be rescued from the rubble of the Hotel Montana, but emergency workers were still trying last night to rescue survivors from the hotel after hearing the voice of a woman speaking in French. Rescue teams also thought they had located two other people alive under the ruins of the hotel.
More bad intelligence?
