We live in a ****ed up world. Can you imagine if all of a sudden all of your family and close friends died?
National Response Plan Emergency Support Functions #6 and #9 activated. That means emergency housing and search and rescue. Starting to tap into Logistics personnel and supplies from agencies. This will be a long-term response.
Also, if you want to read the FEMA National Situation Update, you can do so here: http://www.fema.gov/emergency/reports/2010/nat011510.shtm According to today's report, here's what's going on:
I am in Santo Domingo for business.. we definitly felt the quake but as had been stated not nearly as bad as in Port au Prince by a long shot. Was a wierd sensation since I live in Texas and have never expierenced it before. Good news is that we have been able to send donations over to Haiti... I pray for all those people over there.
Wow...CNN just showed Haitians mobbing a food truck and the civilians were throwing the energy biscuits on the ground stomping them because they confused the package date with the expiration date. The package date said 2008 and the expiration date was Nov. 2010. How the hell can you do that when you are starving? Then, a few were telling everyone else to not eat the biscuits. Unbelievable. Yea...they are handing out expired food because you aren't worth unexpired food. Must be the language barrier at play. Even with UN peacekeepers there, it was a mob scene and the truck ended up driving away without distributing it all. What a mess.
Well ... 5.6 Earthquake in Venezuela. No reports so far about any damage or casualties. I guess 2010 is really starting off with a bang.
Don't judge. They are injured, tired, hungry, confused, and don't even have the luxury of grieving properly. It's not really a surprise that something like this could happen.
I almost think it would be better if trucks distributing aid just drove and had people in the back dumping stuff on the road. This would alleviate everyone trying to mob the truck and give everyone a chance to get something as not everyone would be crowding the same place. Basically, make a food trail. What I was seeing when the food truck stopped is all the big ass men were able to get in there and the women/children were shut out. It makes no sense to me to try to create an orderly food distribution system when people are literally starving. They do need orderly food distribution eventually...but the point now should be to try to get as much food/water on the streets as possible until the aid stations are set up. Hopefully, all the helicopters on the US aircraft carrier can better distribute this food but I'm not clear how. They are having trouble finding places to land with the bigger copters that can carry more aid. They were talking about using the smaller ones so they could actually land them to get aid in. They are talking about safe and orderly distribution of food from aid stations when people are starving to death. How can you be putting people in any more danger or harm than they already are when they are literally starving to death and facing dehydration?
The text "HAITI" donation may not be the best way to go about it according to something I just read a day after I already did it. It turns out your money doesn't get donated until after you pay your phone bill.
26 Urban Search and Rescue teams now deployed in Haiti. No more scheduled to arrive. Logisitics still a bear of a problem. 13,000 reached today with water and food by the UN's World Food Programme. Oh, and Fox News has hired what used to be Blackwater to protect their reporters in Haiti. What could go wrong?
World Health Organization assessment... http://www.who.int/hac/crises/hti/who_rapid_health_assessment_15jan2010.pdf
Be wary of donating to Wyclef's organization: This is one of the organizations participating in the Clooney TV fundraiser (I'm not sure if you can choose who to donate to or if it just gets spread around equally).
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2010/0115102wyclef1.html Wyclef's Skipping Records Star's charity repeatedly dissolved after failing to file reports JANUARY 15--Musician Wyclef Jean's charitable foundation--now the recipient of many donations big and small in the wake of the Haiti earthquake--has repeatedly had its corporate status dissolved for failing to file required state disclosure reports, records show. As seen below, the Florida Division of Corporations has, on four separate occasions over the past five years, sanctioned the Yele Haiti Foundation (the charity was incorporated in Florida in 1998 as the Wyclef Jean Foundation, but formally changed its name two months ago). The longest involuntarily dissolution lasted 26 months, ending in November 2008 when Jean's organization provided Florida officials with overdue annual reports disclosing the identities of the group's officers and directors, its registered agent, and office address. The foundation's most recent dissolution occurred in September 2009, but was vacated a month later when the 37-year-old Jean's group filed its disclosure report. As TSG reported yesterday, the Jean foundation's records delinquency extended to the filing of its tax returns--and could make a prospective donor question whether the organizationally challenged foundation is a wise choice for disaster relief contributions. In August 2009, the group filed overdue tax returns for 2005, 2006, and 2007, documents showing that Jean and fellow board member Jerry Duplessis paid themselves at least $410,000 for services provided to the foundation. Duplessis, a bass player who has toured with Jean, co-owns a New York City recording studio with the performer, as well as a Haiti-based production company. (3 pages)
<object width="853" height="505"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/lDE8YJac0Wc&hl=en_US&fs=1&hd=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/lDE8YJac0Wc&hl=en_US&fs=1&hd=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="853" height="505"></embed></object> I don't know who is telling truth.
That's not really the point. Wyclef should have paid for that concert out of his own pocket or found private sources of funding. He shouldn't have used money from people thinking their donations were going directly to help Haitians. It doesn't matter whether he personally profitted from the concert. The issue is that dollars meant to help Haitians were spent on a concert. With any charitable organization there are adminstrative costs, and they may pay employees rather than have volunteers. You want to give your money to groups that have the lowest possible administrative costs, where the largest percentage of your donation goes to direct aide, and clearly Wyclef's organization is not such a group.
