POULSBO — “I’ve always wanted a job that actually mattered if I showed up for work,” Poulsbo firefighter/EMT Tevia Friedman said during a layover in Miami on Oct. 17.

Friedman, along with EMPACT Northwest Operations Director Jake Gillanders, and Poulsbo Fire Department paramedic, were waiting for the rest of their team to arrive.

They would depart for Beaulieu, Haiti less than 48 hours later.

“This is the calm before the storm,” Friedman said.

EMPACT Northwest is a local non-profit organization providing disaster response, rescue training and medical education in underserved communities. In response to the extensive damage Hurricane Matthew brought to the southwest coast of Haiti nearly two weeks ago, EMPACT sent a 14-person medical team from the Pacific Northwest to help provide urgent care and medical surveillance in the remote areas outside of Port Au Prince on Oct. 19.

Although Haiti was only a one-hour flight and 715 miles away, Friedman was mentally preparing for the magnitude of new devastation in a country still recovering from a major earthquake just six years before.

“I’m going to a country I’ve never been to, into a situation that’s bigger than I’ve ever dealt with,” he said. “Nothing compares to this … You can look at pictures all you want but until you’re in the middle of it, hearing it, smelling it and seeing it, I don’t think anything will prepare you for it.”

The American EMPACT team joined seven Haitian staff members and various other organizations, such as Doctors Without Borders. They prepared to “hit the ground running” by making the five-hour drive from Port Au Prince southwest to Beaulieu. To be as mobile as possible, the team broke into smaller teams of four people and spread into rural areas on the peninsula.

“Our role will most likely be to assess the outlying community,” Friedman said. “For folks who need treatment and can’t get to clinics, we’ll find transport for these people to take them.”

Currently, the death count of Haitian citizens is more than 1,000, and 1.4 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance, according to an Oct. 10 report from Reuters.com. In addition to rebuilding shelter and sanitation, the EMPACT team is working with medical personnel to contain the emerging cholera outbreak.

The bacterial disease, which causes severe diarrhea and dehydration, is usually spread through contaminated water and can kill within hours if left untreated.

“There’s literally nothing,” Friedman said. “We have 12 bags of gear, from food, shelter, cook stoves and tents. Flexibility is the key. With our foot-mobile design, we can send a squad out and be totally self-sufficient on their own. We might find ourselves sleeping in a parking lot.”

In addition to bringing supplies, volunteers pay their own airfare and use personal vacation days to participate. For this trip, a plane ticket to Haiti was roughly $1,200.

“We’re working with under $100,000 a year,” Gillanders said. “A lot of the airfare is out of pocket.”

Poulsbo Fire spokeswoman Jody Matson said, “I’ve always been very impressed with the two of them. This makes me proud. They’re doing this all on their own, taking their vacations and time away from their families to serve people that are really in a crisis.”

While the team returns on Oct. 26, they have a busy week ahead.

“It’s about bringing order to chaos,” Gillanders said.

Gillanders, the team lead, is a seasoned international volunteer who’s traveled to Nepal, the Philippines, and Sierra Leone. This is his 11th trip to Haiti since the earthquake in 2010.

“It’s certainly satisfying work,” he said.

Friedman is among the first-year deploys and is a squad lead overseeing a four-person medical team.

“In a country that is so chaotic right now, my role is making sure we’re staying on mission and within the parameters of that mission,” he said.

Friedman said the work overseas makes them better emergency responders at home. “We do a lot of work stateside as well as internationally,” he said. “We help in domestic disasters and prepare local communities for disasters at home.”

Friedman and Gillanders, both PFD employees for more than a decade, spend substantial amounts of time training with EMPACT.

“This is the standard we’ve set for ourselves. We train to proficiency, not competency,” Friedman said.

As Gillanders reflected on his young daughter safely at home, he said, “We really try to emphasize the importance of international community to her. People in the world, in or outside the U.S., don’t always have the same opportunities we do. It’s our job to help our fellow humans.”

Friedman added, “Just because the hurricane was two weeks ago doesn’t mean there isn’t work to be done. Their events don’t end when people drop off supplies. The effects of these events last for months or years. Just because it isn’t on the front page of the Times or the North Kitsap Herald doesn’t mean it’s over. The potential after-effects from Matthew offer a greater potential for loss of life in Haiti than there was from the storm.”

EMPACT presents its annual fundraising gala at 7 p.m. on Nov. 11 at the Washington State History Museum in Tacoma. Tickets are $40; proceeds help fund the organization. To learn more or purchase tickets, visit www.empactnorthwest.org.