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Alexandre Bitton lived in Pierrefonds with his wife, Line, and their son.

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Hope fades for missing Pierrefonds man in Haiti

'Without our consent, we are in mourning'

Ian Howarth
The Gazette
Wednesday, February 3, 2010

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Alexandre Bitton lived in Pierrefonds with his wife, Line, and their son.

More than two weeks after the devastating earthquake that hit Haiti on Jan. 12, hopes are fading that Alexandre Bitton, a 36-year-old computer technician from Pierrefonds on business in that country, will be found alive.

Bitton had just checked into the Montana Hotel minutes before the quake flattened the five-storey, five-star hotel on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince. His boss, Martin Turgeon, was outside at the pool bar waiting for Bitton when the earthquake struck. He was not injured. He returned to Canada a few days later. Turgeon, president of ADNM International, a company that provides business and information solutions, was in Haiti with Bitton to finalize the installation of accounting software and training staff of the Caribbean Grain Company.

To date, 17 have survived the collapse of the Montana Hotel, with an estimated 25 bodies recovered – including that of ex-Liberal MP, Serge Marcil. The hotel’s capacity was 145, but with staff more than 200 people could have been trapped when the 7.0 magnitude quake struck.

Contacted in Port-au-Prince by telephone, Colonel Scott Clancy, the Air Component Commander for all air forces, said salvage operations at the Montana Hotel were painstakingly slow.

“Rescue teams dug a 14-metre tunnel into the hotel, which took days to do. Removing the rubble could take weeks and weeks,” he said.

Search and rescue teams have moved on, he said, but Canada is still on the ground searching, with 106 Canadians still missing.

“We’re focused on getting to the bottom of each case,” said Clancy. “We’re still calling it search and rescue and our teams have on their minds how important it is to find missing individuals.”

Bitton is a McGill MBA graduate, has two brothers, Guillaume and Geoffrey. His parents, Jocelyn and Ralph, of Pointe Claire, both retired educators, initially held out hope their son would be found alive.

“At first we were shocked and in a state of disbelief,” said Jocelyn. “We had great hope he would be found alive. We wondered why,” she said, in light of the fact that her son was reluctant to go to Haiti and was a last-minute replacement for another ADNM employee.

Bitton was scheduled to go on a vacation to Mexico with his wife and son after his business trip to Port-au-Prince. The Bittons said their son’s wife, Line, was coping under the circumstances, taking care of her child with the help of her parents at her Pierrefonds home.

The Bitton family have received generous support from friends, their rabbi and even complete strangers.

“We have less hope than we did a few weeks ago,” said Ralph. “We have to be realistic, but at the same time we are hoping for a miracle.”

“It seems without our consent, we are in mourning,” added Jocelyn.