07:25 AM PDT on Wednesday, October 6, 2004

Associated Press

PORTLAND - Three Portland-area volunteers with Northwest Medical Teams leave Wednesday to treat Haitian families suffering from last month's Hurricane Jeanne.

AP File

A family sleeps on the roof of their house with all their belongings in Gonaives, Haiti.

The team will bring almost $30,000 in medical supplies.

"The hurricane has further disabled a country that is already marked by violence and poverty," Bas Vanderzalm, president of Northwest Medical Teams, said in a press release.

The hurricane killed more than 1,500 people when it struck the northern city of Gonaives, Haiti. Flooding drove thousands of residents to shelters.

The team will start its tour at a clinic in La Croix and then head to Gonaives when roads become passable.

The Portland-area volunteers are Dr. Joseph Markee and his wife, nurse Linda Markee, both of Washington; and Anne Blaufus of Camas, Wash., an emergency room nurse at Providence Portland Medical Center.

Those three will be joined by a doctor from the San Juan Islands, Wash.