A field journal from Caracas and La Guaira, as Miyamoto International’s teams work to help families recover from Venezuela’s June 2026 earthquakes.
The day started early. After arriving late the night before from Los Angeles, with only the airport in Valencia open and a nearly two-hour drive into Caracas, I was on national radio by 7 a.m. for a live interview. For about thirty minutes I kept the conversation factual and practical: how reconstruction is progressing, and the realistic engineering pathways to recovery.
Fifty engineers today, one hundred by tomorrow
By mid-morning we drove to La Guaira, and this was the part of the day that mattered most. All fifty engineers currently assigned to the program had gathered for the morning briefing, with another fifty arriving the next day. I spoke about the work ahead and where the program is heading.
Their enthusiasm was unmistakable. I know how hard house-by-house assessments are under the tropical sun, surrounded by dust, debris, and damaged buildings. These engineers are doing that work anyway, because they are committed to helping their own communities recover. That is where my hope for this program comes from.
Technology that speeds the work
Around 11 a.m., we climbed the stairs of a large 1950s social housing complex to review repair assessments. The building had not suffered major structural damage, but cracks were everywhere, and residents were uncertain whether their homes were safe.
Our fourteen-person team moved floor by floor and apartment by apartment, using a new assessment app to classify damage and automatically estimate repair quantities. That kind of tool changes what is possible at this scale. When you have hundreds of buildings to evaluate every day, being able to standardize the assessment and generate repair estimates on the spot is what lets a program like this move at the speed families need.
At one apartment, a resident opened the door and recognized me from television. He insisted on guiding us through the maze of apartments, introducing us to his neighbors along the way.
Behind every assessment is a family
By afternoon we reached a community near the airport, where two temporary camps housed families who had lost their homes. More than 2,000 people were living in tents. Walking street by street, we passed buildings marked with green, yellow, and red tags.
Inside one small apartment, an elderly woman asked me to look at the cracks in her concrete walls. Her husband lay quietly on the bed, blind and unable to move. She told me she had nowhere to go if their home was demolished.
It is easy for engineers to say a building is damaged and should come down. We evaluate hundreds of buildings every day. But behind every engineering recommendation is a family whose future may change overnight.
I studied the damage carefully. In my judgment, with appropriate seismic repairs and strengthening, the building could likely be repaired rather than demolished. I told her that.
She began to cry. She said it was the first time she had felt hope since the earthquake three weeks earlier.
That moment is the whole purpose of this program. The physical damage is not always catastrophic, but people’s lives often are. Engineering is not only about evaluating structures. It is about helping families regain a future.
This work is supported by the U.S. Department of State and implemented by Miyamoto International.
