After working with rebuilding efforts in devastated areas, seeing miles upon miles of destruction, and visiting people who lost both homes and loved ones in Hurricane Katrina, Cottonwood resident Nicklas Rogers is at it again.

Rogers will leave for Haiti in early February to help organize the relief efforts of Christian organization Forward Edge International (FEI) for victims of a massive Jan. 12 earthquake.

Haiti's communications minister reported that 150,000 were found dead in Port-Au-Prince alone as of Sunday, according to Associated Press.

"I've been around a lot of that ... but this time a lot of children were injured, and that bothers me," Rogers said.

Not only has Rogers performed similar relief work with FEI in Nicaragua and New Orleans, but he gained the rank of colonel as an Army Reserves Engineer before retiring with 27 years of service. His skills as an army engineer make him valuable for relief efforts as he learned how to construct everything from roads to houses to pipelines, he said.

Rogers will fly to Miami and on to Port Au Prince in Haiti to assess what needs to done to rebuild people's lives, initially by meeting with Haitian pastors to find out who needs help. Other aspects of concern include preparing for the success of aid workers to follow.

Rogers will help plan where they stay, what they eat, where they get water, what tools they use, and where their building supplies come from. He already figures that managing relief efforts will be more difficult Haiti than in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina.

"(Before the trip to the Gulf Coast) I could tell you exactly where I was going and who I was going to see .... I can't tell you that now."

After visiting Haiti, Rogers will return stateside to create an assitance plan with other FEI members. He will then return to Haiti to prepare for the teams of FEI relief workers.

Recalling his relief work in the devastated areas of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Rogers said relief workers slept in sleeping bags on destroyed church floors and ate mostly protein bars they packed with them for the first week.

Every house they entered, Rogers said, crews feared discovering three things: dead bodies, alligators and water moccasins.

"It's a different reality than watching it on TV," he said.

With the FEI work crews helping to clear ruined furniture and flooring from houses, it often inspired home owners to overcome their grief enough to repair their own homes, he said.

"Get them hope," Rogers said. "When they have hope, they start doing things themselves. Once they saw us cleaning up their property, ... they realized they still had a home."

Rogers said he will attempt to contact the Valley Post from Haiti to report on conditions he finds there.