Helping After Another Earthquake in Turkey

Between Iraq and a Hard Place

Between Iraq and a Hard Place: Episode 58

This is a special update episode! Hannah and Colleen interview Robin, who helped SGI rebuild schools in Turkey after the big earthquakes in 1999. Those connections and relationships have opened up paths for us to serve in relief work and hopefully with rebuilding after these more recent earthquakes. We're sending teams to help build shelters in the short term and hopefully continue to serve the area as they rebuild. https://servantgroup.org/relief-work-in-turkey-team-heading-over-soon/

And here's a rough transcript!

Hannah: Welcome to "Between Iraq and a Hard Place". I'm Hannah.

Colleen: And I'm Colleen. And we're here to tell you a little bit about life in Iraq.

Hannah: Woo hoo!

Colleen: Today we have a guest with us, our dear friend Robin Dillard.

Hannah: She's been on the podcast before.

Colleen: True. But today she's coming to us in a very special capacity as she was part of a team years ago with Servant Group that served after the 1999 earthquake in Turkey. And so that seemed particularly relevant right now as we are continuing at looking at ways of serving in Turkey as Turkey suffered another major series of earthquakes. So we're very excited to hear what you have to share today, Robin, and how everything's connected, the work then and the work now.

Hannah: So our first non Iraq focused episode. Mm hmm.

Colleen: Yeah, ooh. Is that a problem?

Hannah: No. We're just gonna have to call this one between Turkey and a hard place.

Robin: Uh, well, it's interesting because when the earthquake of 99 happens in Turkey, Dave and I had been working in Iraq already for eight years or something like that. And so our work was centered on the Kurds in Iraq and hadn't thought about working in Turkey. So when the earthquake happened there was a church in Nashville or a supporter that went to one of our supporting churches and said, Hey, this is a really devastating event that's happened in Turkey. I'd like to send the director over to Turkey and get him on the ground and just see what the people could use there. And so with the $1,000, that was the donation it paid for the the travel. It got our director, Douglas, over to Turkey on the ground. And when he was over there, he met with several friends who had been living in Istanbul and some other team members from Europe met him there. And together they went to the center of the earthquake region, which was Izmit. That earthquake was 7.4. So it was it was pretty major. It was what they were calling at that time, the event of the century. This was about you could take a boat ride from Istanbul. It takes about an hour if you get on the ferry. So it's pretty close to Istanbul. And so the team came together and went on site and it was just devastating, how many people were homeless. Actually, after the earthquake, there was a tsunami in the Sea of Marmara that killed another couple hundred people.

Colleen: Wow.

Robin: So just devastated. This earthquake killed about 17,000 and about half a million people were left homeless. So when they went there, they just met with the city officials and said, what can we do? How can we help? You know, and what besides needing shelter, they really wanted schools. Everything was devastated. Their kids had no place to learn. So that was sort of the takeaway. They want us to build some schools. He flew back to America. And brought Dave in the office and said, Aren't you an engineer? And Dave said, Yeah. And he said, Isn't your wife an engineer? Yeah, she's an engineer. Hey, can you build some buildings? And we were like, What? I mean, it's specialty earthquake design is a specialty in structural design. And so my college degree was in structural design, but I didn't do much earthquake design at all. But we had friends who lived in the Pacific Northwest who were very accustomed to that kind of design. So they had the technology we needed and were willing to come alongside of us.

Colleen: So you guys decided to build schools?

Robin: Yeah.

Colleen: In Turkey?

Robin: Yeah.

Hannah: Earthquake resistant.

Robin: Schools? Yeah.

Hannah: How was the timeline on this? Like, how long from Douglas getting back? Was he like, okay, you guys are going to go?

Robin: It was like less than a couple of months. It was so fast. It was fast. Yeah. So we had, we had the $1,000 that was all that was given. We started raising money for this huge project and sent our first team over to build several concrete structures. Which that was sort of the first prototype. It was much more difficult, but it got us on the ground really fast. And we took teams there, contractors from Nashville and people that could just pick up and go right away. And that was the first team that went. And in the process, Dave was supposed to go over and he got appendicitis.

Hannah: Oh, no!

Robin: I don't know if you guys knew that he was really, really ill because his appendix burst and so he was bed bound for like weeks. He was so ill. So he was the person who was supposed to be in charge of everything. And here he was stateside. So we sent the teams. They did really tremendous work, working with local contractors. And so that was the first two school buildings that were built and everyone was happy. And it gave us favor. Like, I mean, the government officials were like, come back, we need more. We need more. So. It gave us a little bit more time. To to say, okay, just pouring these concrete structures on site is not probably the best way. There's got to be better construction and maybe we can build something in America and have it partially shipped over. So we called FedEx and they were on board to to help us get materials to Turkey. So they were sort of our logistics person, FedEx. And and we linked up one of our contacts in the Pacific Northwest had developed this earthquake resistant building system recently and it was sort of a combination metal and concrete system. And so we really we learned how to use that system and how to detail and design using it. And what we ended up doing is building some of the frames just in our parking lot in Nashville and having all those things figured out, the frames built, shipping them over, using FedEx. They arrived on the site and once we got on site with our teams, then we started pouring concrete and much more efficient system, much more light gauge, lightweight, earthquake resistant and just doable. Like it was quick and you could put up a building just like in a week. Literally. Just tilt it up. It was tilt up panels a little bit different than we did before.

Hannah: What's a tilt up panel?

Robin: Yeah. So you have a metal frame that's done and that's what we did in Nashville. And and you set it on the ground. You sort of. It's like making brownies, sort of.

Hannah: Okay.

Robin: Here's what you do. You line like you have a form on the ground and you put like you spray it like with Pam so it doesn't stick. And then you lay your metal into it and then you pour your concrete on it and you let it dry and then you pick it up. You just tilt it up and that becomes your wall system and your roof system for a building. And it's extremely efficient, lightweight, fast. And what you have to bring from America are like the anchors that hold it all together. And that's what we were shipping over besides the the metal, we shipped all these anchors over and it was crazy. So I think, um, we took in the process over several years we built six structures. And probably involved several hundred people. Building and going over to Turkey like either involved in Nashville building frames or on the ground. You know, putting these buildings up, finishing the buildings, all that. And probably that thousand dollars was the seed money it turned into several hundred thousand dollars being raised is probably was 200 to 300 people being involved from $1,000 seed money.

Colleen: That's a big project.

Robin: Amazing. So the last building we built was for our team members who wanted to stay in the region and continue to help the people of that city. And so the second to the last building we built was the police headquarters in that city.

Colleen: I've seen photos of that one.

Robin: So that one was the smile of the city. And man, everyone loved it and felt safe in it. And from that point on, our team members like they had the kiss of of the mayor. And the last building we built was was a house for our team member to live in. So he stayed in that region and helped the people. Help them with industry, business. As well as helping the refugees that would later show up and that all along the coast from Syria and Iran and Iraq. And so he's been there over 20 years.

Hannah: Yeah. That's amazing.

Robin: Yeah, it is.

Hannah: And now they've had this this huge, bigger earthquake, right? 7.8 was the original one. And it was devastating. And they've recently had some more big ones. And probably by the time this gets out there, we'll have more accurate numbers. But they're in the hundreds of thousands of people presumed dead at this point. Right.

Colleen: I don't know if it's quite hundreds of thousands.

Hannah: Tens of thousands?

Robin: Tens of thousands. Yeah, it's over 40. I think we're looking at 45,000.

Hannah: So we are still working with with folks there in Turkey still right now, it seems like the thing they need is, is funds to be able to feed and house and and work on some rescue operation type stuff.

Colleen: It sounds like most of what's going on is passing out food, blankets, diapers and then building tents or these other kind of temporary metal structures.

Hannah: Yeah, we are sending teams?

Colleen: We're sending a team next week.

Robin: Yeah. It's a discovery trip. And yeah, they'll survey the land and see and see if they can get all the materials they need on the ground. But it will be a shelter, shelter building. I mean we're hoping to I think we are with another agency raising funds for 100 structures. Right. That's the first phase. Yeah. 100.

Hannah: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think we are hopeful that we can send interested Americans over to to help build that. And that will be pending information. Keep an eye on the website for information about that. If if you're interested in in going, that might be possible. So yeah, we're just again amazed that it's been 20 some years, 23 year since then. And and we're back. We're connected still through all of this. Yeah. Well, thanks. Thanks, Robin. Anything else?

Colleen: Thanks. Glad to be here.

Hannah: Are you going to build us some earthquake proof shelters here in the US.

Robin: What do you think? Do you like concrete?

Hannah: I think the back end of the office needs to be shored up.

Robin: I think you're right. That makes me a little bit nervous. Actually. I agree with you.

Hannah: Oh, man.

Hannah: We'd love to hear from you. You can find us at Servant Group International on Facebook or Instagram, and you should check out our blog and complete transcripts over at ServantGroup.org.

Colleen: And it's really helpful for us if you share our podcast or leave a review on whatever platform you listen to this podcast on, it helps us know that people are listening and you can let us know what you want to hear next.

Hannah: Thanks for listening.