Parker serves as Bracken County coroner.
The team, consisting of 20 members divided between the Port-au-Prince site and in the neighboring country of the Dominican Republic, arrived late Monday and began setting up operations sites in both locations, officials said.
Because of the severe aftershock Wednesday morning, KIES officials contacted Parker's family by phone Wednesday to reassure them he was okay, and Parker contacted his family by e-mail a short time later, a family member said.
Parker is staying in a tent with eight other team members and described the 6.1 magnitude aftershock as feeling "kind of weird."
"The teams are now en route to Port-au-Prince," said Frank Ciaccio, vice president of commercial services with Kenyon International Emergency Services. "We are executing our plan that will be fully operational within the next 24 to 48 hours. There are two teams going to respond. The first will be a recovery advice team that will be in Port-au-Prince and second team will be based in the Dominican Republic."
Parker, with communications access limited, contacted family members in a brief e-mail Tuesday, telling his grandchildren, "Pappie is OK." and explaining he is working in an office collecting data, "for now."
Parker described his living accommodations as good and said that he has lots of work to do.
Teams have a variety of duties, including, identification, repatriation and embalming duties, officials said.
"It's still a dangerous situation. It ranges from removing the human remains from buildings, getting the remains to the morgue area in the Dominican Republic, processing them and getting the remains repatriated back to their families. We also need to collect medical records and missing person's information as well," Ciaccio said.
For more than 100 years KIES has been assisting in the wake of a variety of disasters, officials said.
Parker has also participated in assistance activities following natural and man-made disasters, offering his expertise as a mortician and coroner in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina, and in Lexington after the Flight 5191 crash.
For information on KIES go to www.kenyoninternational.com.
Contact Wendy Mitchell at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or call 606-564-9091, ext. 276.
For more area news, visit www.maysville-online.com.