CAP-HAITIEN, HAITI After five days of delays, Charlotte relief workers finally got their hands on more than 40,000 pounds of donations from the Queen City.

Seven Charlotte team members, most of them native Haitians, joined dozens of hired locals to unload two trucks filled with medical equipment and nearly 1,000 cardboard boxes.

" An-n Ale. An-n Ale," Sabine Guerrier, the team's leader, yelled in Creole as she clapped, "Let's go. Let's go."

The workers removed a hospital bed, six wheelchairs, a dozen crutches, several tents, 350 cases of water, hundreds of candles, clothes, shoes, baby formula and pacifiers and other items, including about a dozen pairs of high heels.

"No one is going out right now," said a frustrated Betty Kernizan, a human resources specialist from Charlotte, referring to the shoes. "We have to think of their needs right now."

In the end, they took the high heels with them - thinking some families might cut off the heels rather than go barefoot.

The donations came from churches, hospitals and clinics, doctors' offices, and nonprofit groups including Charlotte's Haitian Heritage and Friends of Haiti. Here, the medical supplies will be distributed to hospitals overrun with patients. Hundreds of needy families will receive care packages.

The shipment was to arrive by cargo ship last Monday so the team could pick it up Tuesday. But bad weather kept the ship out at sea an extra day, and unreliable communications and seemingly endless red tape kept the supplies locked up until Sunday.

The extra time cost the group an additional $2,000 in fees for the paperwork, storage, and release of the goods, said Guerrier, president of Charlotte's Haitian Heritage and Friends of Haiti

"You sneeze and there is a fee," she said.

The two locked containers of donated goods were delivered to a hotel where the items would be organized under armed guard before being distributed.

A Cap-Haitien customs agent met the group to verify that everything delivered was as reported.

When the doors were unlocked Sunday morning, agent Rebecca Etienne asked to see a box of medical supplies. To the group's horror, much of the medical supplies inside had long passed their expiration dates.

"Customs will have to reclaim them and they'll be destroyed," Etienne said. "We're waiting for outside help, but the aid coming in must be good."

Guerrier was disappointed, but glad the agent found the expired materials. She said they would not have been put on the ship had they known. Her group received so much donated material in such a short period, she said, that they didn't have time to review everything inside.

As it turned out, the first box was the only one with tainted supplies.

Charlotte nurse Gyslain Auguste, 67, pulled a wheelchair off the truck and also a medical lift that used to belong to his aunt.

"I know this is not expired," he joked.

Kernizan helped organize the clothes and food. The team, using industrial sized rice bags, made care packages of nonperishable food, hygiene kits and clothes to be distributed to needy families in two nearby communities.

Guerrier said she wouldn't be satisfied until all the items were delivered to the hospitals and families. But, she said, at least now they have possession of the donations.

"I can start doing what I came here to do."