“Not a crack:” US engineer, an ACN volunteer, returns to Venezuela following earthquake

Church building that ACN supported three years ago was intact in midst of destruction, thanks to John Smith’s insistence that it follow building codes.

Two months after twin earthquakes in Venezuela caused thousands of deaths and left a trail of destruction, an American engineer named John Smith stood inside a parish rectory that, he said, “didn’t have a crack in it.”

All around the rectory, sadly, homes, offices and schools had been reduced to rubble by the 7.5 and 7.2 back-to-back earthquakes of June 24.

A miracle? Not at all. It was Smith’s own insistence several years earlier, when Aid to the Church in Need was supporting the rectory’s construction, that it adhere to building codes for structures within earthquake zones.

Now, as the pontifical foundation is assisting the Church in Venezuela to recover from the June 24 catastrophe, Smith is again providing his expertise to ensure that structures that need to be rebuilt or renovated – churches, seminaries, schools and rectories – conform to the highest standards. It may very well save them in the future.

The church that Smith visited last month was built in the middle of La Guaira, which was the center of the earthquake.

Smith, who retired from managing a factory in Illinois and now volunteers for ACN, recalled his role in the planning of the complex.

“I was quite adamant that we have a responsibility to not only the people we were representing but to our donors, to make sure the funds are being used in a responsible way,” he said in an interview. “Whenever I review a project that’s in an earthquake zone, I require a seismic analysis to ensure that it complies with the local code.”

Smith previously served as an engineering consultant for project in Iraq that ACN supported following the defeat of the Islamic State group and the return of Christians to the villages they had fled from.

Church present to a hurting people

After sending an initial donation of 100,000 Euros in emergency aid to the Church in Venezuela and pledging future support, ACN International once again called upon Smith to to provide technical assessments. He and Luis Vildoso, who is responsible for ACN’s projects in Latin America, met with local bishops. They consulted with Caracas Archbishop Raúl Biord Castillo and a team of experts that the archbishop put together, including Fr. Neptali Balza, an engineer who is Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Caracas, and Antonio Montecalvo, an architect. They examined churches, rectories and seminaries.

“I was able to talk about some of the issues that might come up in this kind of work,” Smith told ACN USA upon his return to the United States. “They’ve got very strong engineering capability in Venezuela, so this team that Archbishop Biord has set up is working very collaboratively. There’s a very competent team on the ground.”

He reported that the cathedrals of Caracas and La Guaira were both seriously damaged, as were many buildings in the “barrios,” the poorer neighborhoods.

“The construction is this ceramic brick that would tend to crack very easy under an earthquake,” Smith said.

The engineer noted that during his 10-day visit, he also examined the pricing of labor and materials. “Everything that I saw there is in line with the cost of what I saw in Venezuela prior to the earthquake, so they seem to be containing that artificial inflation that tends to come about after an event like this,” said Smith, who worked in Venezuela from 1980-1992.

The seminary in La Guaira was destroyed, so the 12 seminarians there will be moving to Santa Rosa de Lima Seminary of the Archdiocese of Caracas. ACN supported the refurbishment of the entire seminary’s electrical system and the restoration of dormitories, allowing 57 students to take up residence in time for the new school year.

In addition to assessing reconstruction projects, Smith had a chance to observe how the people of Venezuela are coping with the tragedy.

The official death toll stands at over 6,500, and the rate of recovery of bodies has slowed down. But there are still many people missing, and presumably there are many bodies under the rubble that has not yet been cleared. For Venezuelans, who are predominantly Catholic, the presence of the Church is of utmost importance. Priests are “out in the street with people,” Smith said. “There’s a lot of personal engagement. The churches are packed. All the Masses I went to were standing room only.”

He found bishops’ offices stacked to the ceiling with material aid to be distributed to the needy and parishioners helping each other and opening their homes to those left homeless.

“You didn’t see people out complaining about their situation, even though families had lost family members,” Smith said. “They’re very supportive of each other, trying to find a way to move on.”

–John Burger