Happy World Plumbing Day! We Celebrate By Interviewing … A Plumber

People gather around broken water pipes to collect drinking water in Port au Prince, Haiti, after the January 2010 earthquake. David Gilkey/NPR hide caption

People gather around broken water pipes to collect drinking water in Port au Prince, Haiti, after the January 2010 earthquake.

Fred Schilling has made many trips to Haiti to fix pipes and train Haitians. Courtesy of Plumbers Without Borders hide caption

Fred Schilling has made many trips to Haiti to fix pipes and train Haitians.

A newly installed toilet in Haiti. Courtesy of Plumbers Without Borders hide caption

A newly installed toilet in Haiti.

After a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti in 2010, help poured in from the U.S. Doctors came to battle the cholera epidemic, agencies handed out food, and nonprofits provided shelter.

And then there were plumbers.

The earthquake had triggered a water crisis in a country where millions already lacked a source of clean water. That year, more than 530,000 Haitians were sickened by contaminated water; 7,000 of them died.

Underground pipelines in Haiti were virtually nonexistent, save for the one that supplied water to the capital of Port-au-Prince. Even that one barely worked, says Fred Schilling. "For the most part, you turned on the faucet and nothing came out."

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Happy World Plumbing Day! We Celebrate By Interviewing ... A Plumber