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FORT PIERCE — The second phase of earthquake relief for Haiti is under way as 200 tons of heavy equipment and building materials are being loaded onto a cargo ship Monday at the Port of Fort Pierce.

Once full of supplies for Samaritan’s Purse International Relief, the Caribe Star 1 is expected to set sail Monday night and arrive Friday morning at the dock of a former cement factory near Port-au-Prince.

As the supplies and equipment were being positioned at the port Monday morning, Luther Harrison, director of North American projects for Samaritan’s Purse, said the Boone, N.C.-based charity already had a team of 60 in Haiti when the earthquake hit.

Since then, he said, 19 medical personnel at the Baptist Haiti Mission Hospital in Fermathe southeast of Port-au-Prince have been treating wounds, performing surgery and caring for the sick. Also, 40 Samaritan’s Purse staffers are distributing rolls of plastic for temporary shelter, solar flashlights, blankets, community water filters and water purification packets.

“We’ve been partnering with (Fort Pierce-based) Missionary Flights International to fly in food and medicine,” he said. “Now it’s time to send in the big stuff, the stuff that’s too big to put on a plane. We’re coming out of the emergency phase and into the recovery phase. The whole infrastructure down there has been destroyed, and we have to rebuild every aspect of it.”

Dr. David Gettle, chief medical adviser for Samaritan’s Purse, said in a prepared statement that wounded and sick earthquake survivors “are coming to us by the busloads. Without the ability to transport supplies through the rubble-strewn streets, we will not be able to treat them.”

Cargo on the Caribe Star 1 will include excavators, hydraulic hammers, a bulldozer, dump trucks, a tractor-trailer, flatbed trucks, vans, pickup trucks, Bobcat loaders, plastic pipes, plastic sheeting and lumber.

Harrison said half the vehicles were bought just last week at sites as far-flung as New Jersey, Arkansas and Virginia.

Getting all the equipment to Fort Pierce in a hurry should have been a logistical nightmare for the faith-based nonprofit headed by Franklin Graham, son of evangelist the Rev. Billy Graham.

“God has been steering us in the right channels,” Harrison said.

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