What it's really like in Haiti

Last night, UF had it's second journalism town hall forum of the year. The event was called "Covering Disasters," which had Rick Hirsch, senior editor of the Miami Herald, Tamara Lush, Associated Press reporter, Jon Bougher, Documentary Institute student and Tom Brew, deputy editor of MSNBC.

Hirsch talked about how the Miami Herald is known for knowing Haiti well. There are about 300,000 haitians in south Florida so it was like a local story, Hirsch said.

In his newspaper staff, there weren't many people who didn't have a relative who passed away in the earthquake. He has sent 15 people out since the disaster, and 4 are still there now.

Bougher arrived the day before the earthquake, filming a documentary of Haiti. He said he felt a shake at the kitchen table, and got out of the building within a few seconds.

Later he found out the people who hesitated were the ones that didn't survive. Buildings killed people, not the earthquake, he said.

It hadn't been a couple of days that he arrived back in the U.S. that he decided to return again.

Lush, who has worked for AP for 2 years and lives in Tampa, got called to go to Haiti the Wednesday after the earthquake. She said she had reported many sad stories and has seen dead bodies and disasters, but on the plane to Haiti she began to feel real apprehension and started to wonder if she was really prepared for it.

"The Haiti assignment was the most difficult assignment of my career of 17 years," Lush said. "Every day was a challenge."

After seeing a series of horrific scenes, Lush would say to herself that there was nothing else that could shock her.

"But something else always did," Lush said.

Lush said the hardest part was the constant threat of aftershocks. It took a toll on her in a way she was not prepared for.

Someone at the forum asked Lush how she was able to separate her emotions and still do her reporting. She said she had to try to not think about what was going on, and push her emotions down.

But that did not always work.

"At one point I had to go somewhere calm, where I just sat there and sobbed," Lush said. "It was like a horror movie. It shook my soul to be there," Lush said.

All the Haitians Lush spoke to were extremely nice, respectful, gracious and kind, and none of them refused to speak. They wanted people to know their story.

Read two of Tamara Lush's stories - Haiti quake creates thousands of new orphans and In Haiti, little separates life and death