Hello everyone,

I have no concrete news to report, but I wanted to share what we do know.

Those of you who don't know Katie personally, attached is a picture of Katie.

From Facebook we learned that the UN and a search & rescue team have reportedly been on site since yesterday. Excavation activities at the hotel site have started this morning. We were not able to confirm that this is going on, but I hope so. A picture of the hotel is attached. It is not completely destroyed, but the damage is extensive; you can see that not all sections were equally badly hit.

We contacted the DFAIT Emergency Centre several times, I got through twice since yesterday. They really know nothing about specifics. They seem to maintain a database of who's accounted for and who's not.

Last night we got an email from Haiti. The embassy contact for Katie survived and reported her cell number and cell service (Voila). We called the number and texted to it, but no luck. The situation is difficult for anyone, including the embassy folks. Our contact was only able to return to the embassy yesterday at 4:30 pm. Communications are still not restored, but at least we had contact with our local contact once.

We can see on facebook that many people have been evacuated to the Dominican Republic. I started calling hospitals there yesterday, we'll continue this effort. So far I only got through to one, and she was not there.

We have been in contact with companies who have employees missing and who stayed at the same hotel. We are hoping to share information with them.

I just received a call from the Director or DFAIT who is in charge of the environmental program. He relayed that their own DFAIT person is leaving Trenton this morning and will be in Haiti this afternoon. He will go to the hotel site. He also told me that the Canadian assistance teams are starting to arrive in Haiti, and that they have whereabouts of missing Canadians, and Katie is on their list. He told me that the Hotel Montana is one of the locations where they will do work. He promised me to keep me informed. They meet and have conference calls twice a day. He also confirmed that Katie is a person of high interest for DFAIT.

We are now planning on releasing information on Katie to the media. We cannot see a downside to broadcast Katie's picture.

We can only hope and pray. Please keep your hopes up.

Sincerely,
Thomas Franz, M.Sc., P.Geo.
President
Franz Environmental Inc.