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Rescue workers carrying on regardless

Gerry Brown has seen large-scale death and destruction before, at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, and during the 2004 Asian tsunami.

Now the corpulent, bearded pastor from the U-Turn for Christ evangelical church based in Perris, California, wades through waist-deep mud on central Leyte island. His Filipino followers have set up a counseling center for rescue workers trying to find survivors of the landslide that buried the village of Guinsaugon.

Keeping hope alive is difficult.

"With every day gone by, chances of finding people alive are slim," said Brown, who is affiliated with the foundation of evangelist Billy Graham.

He said he arrived at the site of the terrorist attacks in New York City soon after they happened, and was active in counseling Thai survivors of the Indian Ocean tsunami.

He sticks out among the US Marines, Taiwanese and Malaysian teams and Filipino volunteers from all over the archipelago. Dressed in shorts, flip-flops or muddy rubber boots and a striped shirt, Brown carries a badge reading "Sheriff's Deputy Riverside." He's the sheriff's chaplain in Riverside, California.

"This is just horrific," he said. "I was on Samar Island for a pastors' conference when this happened. I just jumped on a truck and drove down here."

Brown said his small Filipino church team has offered counseling to local rescuers, officials and volunteers, who are losing hope fast.

"Morale is down," he said. "But we'll stay here as long as necessary."

Every morning, Lance Corporal Christian Carney from Long Island, New York, plays Amazing Grace on his bagpipes.

Some Marines applaud, then grab shovels and communication gear, line up and board the back of dump trucks for a short ride, then walk up in the mud to dig or clear a path for payloaders approaching the devastation.

Language is a problem for the US Marines, but they have specialists and interpreters. A few are Filipino-Americans. Yesterday, Captain Mark Paolicelli, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, looked for a Spanish-speaking Marine to talk to the Spanish team about getting the dogs to the site of a school -- the focus of the rescue effort. He found one within minutes.
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