A local family is still waiting for word on a Washougal man who has been missing since Tuesday’s earthquake devastated Haiti.
Walt Ratterman was visiting Haiti to check on a solar-power project when his family lost touch with him when the quake hit.
“We are pretty certain he was sending e-mails at the time, from the courtyard of Hotel Montana,” said Briana Ratterman, daughter of the missing man.
“Fifteen minutes before the quake, he had e-mailed my mother a light-hearted message,” she said.
Local relief agency plans Haiti mission
The hotel collapsed during the earthquake.
Since then, there has been no word from her father or the man he was meeting, Briana Ratterman said.
Walt Ratterman is co-founder of Sun Energy Power International, a Washougal-based nonprofit aid agency that provides help with renewable-energy systems in remote, rural parts of the world.
Ratterman arrived in Haiti on Jan. 2 to work on a solar-energy project, in partnership with the U.S. Agency for International Development, at rural hospitals.
“He was scheduled to come back to the States today,” Briana Ratterman said by phone Friday from Walt and Jeanne Ratterman’s home north of Washougal.
Now people are looking for the 57-year-old man in the shattered Haitian capital.
His project is connected with the United Nations office and the U.S. AID mission in Haiti, “So they have put out his photo and passport number and all his statistics — height and weight. They know what to look for,” she said.
Walt Ratterman has worked with a lot of different aid groups in a lot of places, she added.
Since he was reported missing, support has been coming from all over the world, she said: “People are praying for him in Burma, Rwanda, Pakistan, Palestine.”
Tom Vogt: 360-735-4558 or tom.vogt@columbian.com.
