After weeks of praying for a miracle, a Washougal family is dealing with some tough news from Haiti. Search teams at the Hotel Montana, in Port Au Prince, found the body of Walt Ratterman.
Jeanne Ratterman heard the news from the State Department Monday.
"I was waiting for my miracle."
She's now filling out the necessary documents to bring home her husband's body, which is at Dover Air Force Base. They hope he will be home in about a week.
Once he's home in Washington she plans to hold a memorial. It will be open to all the friends, near and far, who have supported her family since the earthquake January 12th.
Walt Ratterman was in Haiti installing solar energy panels at rural Haitian churches. He was inside the Hotel Montana, in a second floor conference room, when the quake hit. He always carried a backpack with food and water, he'd survived in war-zones, so his family believed he would survive this too.
Last week, with help from humanitarian groups, Jeanne Ratterman visited Haiti. She wanted to find her husband, her friend of 40 years.
She describes standing over the hotel rubble where her husband was last seen.
"It was good and it was sad."
She says it provided some closure for her. The volunteers were painstakingly combing through debris, searching for open "voids" where someone may have been buried.
Though volunteers didn't find her husband until after she left Haiti, she did witness his impact on several communities, -- hospitals, outfitted with Ratterman's SunEnergy Power
International solar panels, were among the few facilities with electricity after the quake.
"Definitely exciting to see all the Partners In Health hospitals are running and helping people."
Now, back home in Washougal, she continues reading Walt's Facebook page. It's filled with anecdotes and inspiring stories from all corners of the world where Walt worked with humanitarian groups.
She says those tales make all the difference.
"We couldn't have done this without all that help."
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