It’s blisteringly hot on the roof of the airport building, from where we’ve been presenting the Port-au-Prince part of Channel 4 News.
To get to the roof, we’ve had to pass all the equipment, including the cameras and technical support, up an emergency fire escape ladder and through a small hole.
I’m sitting up there, scribbling the scripts for Jon because the printer is being temperamental. So too are some of the other communications.
Minutes later, I’m standing behind Graham who’s one of two cameramen for our outside broadcast with my phone to my ear and an open line to our studio in London in case we lose other communications meaning I will have to manually cue Jon. Luckily, most of the communications work.
While I’m waiting for the programme to go out, I look out over the airport to get a better view of the army of equipment that has been coming in overnight.
I’d heard various C-130s planes landing, a night-time of noisy activity – only partially cancelled out by the earplugs I wear – and muted to a monotonous hum by the generators as I lay in the tent on the other side of the fence to the runway.
There are several helicopters and many cartons of water, military tents perhaps being readied for a field hospital, quad bikes, hospital supplies and dozens of troops, served by a line of portaloos.
The noise of helicopters is incessant; the sight is extraordinary, especially when compared with the sight 180 degrees away. I turn my eyes to the other side of the building and there’s a field of makeshift tents, made from tarpaulin and material, set up by displaced Haitians.
It seems such a short distance between the haves and the have-nots, and for now we are in no man’s land and we’re beginning to feel the pressure mounting.
Half way through the programme, a handful of US marines approach us. It’s an ominous sign.
They tell us it’s no longer safe to stay in the compound. There have been various Haitians sneaking through the gates, trying to find a job or some money, or – we fear – take our belongings. We are after all a symbol of plenty in a land of almost nothing.
And so, after finishing the programme we scramble to pack up our equipment and belongings and the world’s media – our colleagues camping alongside us are from all over the world – are nomads once again.
It takes a while and makes our already tiring and complicated logistics even more so. Now we have to find a new location to sleep and more problematically somewhere to transmit our pictures back to Britain via a satellite dish, all of which requires electricity.
On a story like an earthquake you have to provide all your own water, food and power – it’s a “full Monty” send as my colleague Stuart says.
We get sent out to go and get some elements for a story we’re hoping to do for tomorrow.
The time difference of five hours means we’ve been starting work before seven our time, working towards a 2pm deadline and then once the programme has finished we go out again to shoot pictures for the next day until nightfall when exhaustion and security concerns mean we’re in bed by nine.
This time we finish filming as night falls and are told our colleagues have found a hotel with electricity and running water. We are overjoyed.
Our brilliant security guard drives us some twenty minutes or so out of the city, narrowly getting us out of some road mayhem, where we uncomfortably get blocked in a huge jam as an ambulance hurtles past, closely followed by UN vehicles.
It can’t be that serious I think as I see one UN soldier holding up his mobile to take a snapshot of a fairly major Haitian jam.
And finally we find the hotel. I watch my colleagues from ITV and Channel 4 News form a human chain to unload seemingly endless supplies of drinking water.
Now in my room, with intermittent electricity and water I have a bed for the first time in three days and perhaps later if I’m really lucky enough water for a shower.
It seems not. As I write, the power has just gone and with it the water.
The end of another day in this fascinating and unpredictable country.