WASHOUGAL, Wash. -- With the official search for Haiti earthquake survivors officially declared over, a Washougal family is still holding out hope that the effort continues into next week.
Jeanne Ratterman is asking the public to visit her husband Walt's Facebook page and sign a petition to continue the search at the Hotel Montana where he was staying.
Walt Ratterman was working on renewable energy projects for rural Haitian hospitals when the earthquake hit. The family has not had any contact with him since.
The family received some good news Sunday. While the official Haitian search is off, two U.S.-based crews continue on at the Hotel Montana, especially the news Saturday that a man buried for 11 days was pulled from the rubble of another site.
Rescuers reached Wismond Exantus by digging a tunnel into a destroyed fruit and vegetable shop, French officials said, on the same day the U.N. announced that the Haitian government had declared an end to searches for living people trapped under debris.
Exantus, who is in his 20s, was placed on a stretcher and given intravenous fluids as onlookers cheered. He later told The Associated Press he survived by diving under a desk during the quake and later consuming some cola, beer and cookies in the cramped space.
Briana said her dad was likely in a meeting in a second-floor conference room of the Hotel Montana in Port Au Prince when the earthquake leveled the building. She recently got word from Haiti that a search and rescue team, using specialized acoustic equipment, was still detecting tapping sounds, "meaning people are still alive under the hotel rubble,” she said.
Briana and her mother, Jeanne, were hoping they would get the good news any moment that Walt has been found. “We’re up and down, but still hopeful. If anyone can survive this – it’s him,” she said.
A humanitarian relief organization recently dispatched a team to Haiti, including a K-9, to help look for Walt, who is the co-founder of Washougal-based nonprofit Sun Energy Power International.
Ratterman has worked around the world as an electrician and renewable energy contractor, according to Knights Bridge International.
