Visiting Australia at the time of the earthquake, Rhyne Simpson Jr., an authority on the U.S. gypsum and housing industries, has returned to the United States after a study tour in which he looked at Rapidwall, its production facility and its suitability for construction in the United States.

“When the terrible devastation that is facing the Haitian people became evident to us we shifted focus knowing that Rapidwall can offer a quick and appropriate solution to re-house people in Haiti”, said Mr Simpson.

“Not only is Rapidwall earthquake and hurricane resistant, it can also provide local employment. I am already in discussions with a company in the United States to bring this about”, he added.

Mr Peter Zwaans, Managing Director of Rapid Building Systems, said, “The benefit of providing a plant to produce Rapidwall in Haiti is that panels can be made locally and cut to size in the factory. They can easily be transported to local communities and with minimal training, the community can reconstruct itself.

Rapidwall has great construction flexibility for domestic housing, apartments and the like but if these homes are small, they can be constructed in a matter of hours rather than months.

As well as providing homes, building with Rapidwall will give the people affected by the earthquake, a real purpose to their lives.

Given the right circumstances we believe we could have a Rapidwall plant constructed and producing Rapidwall panels in Haiti or the nearby Dominian Republic within five months.”

While this may seem like an inordinate amount of time you only need to look at how slowly reconstruction occurs after natural disasters, so five months is really very quick. In Australia for example 3,000 people were left homeless after the Victorian fires last year and yet I understand less than 300 building approvals have been given” he added.

See full presentation on Building for Natural Disasters.