My thoughts on Haiti

[Tx4obama]

Unless you have lived through a disaster you can never know what the people of Haiti are going through.
Even if you have lived through a disaster you can never know what the people of Haiti are going through because there has never been a disaster as the one now in Haiti.

When in recent history has there been a disaster where there was no access by water or roads into the country, and only one landing strip at the airport? Never.

I lived through hurricane Ike here in Southern Texas in 2008 and it was pretty darn bad REALLY BAD living without electricity for two weeks in the Texas heat and a huge tree that fell on the roof -- BUT we still had running water, after two days the daily paper was delivered in the morning so we knew what was going on, we had a gas grill to cook food on, a hospital down the road that had generators so they could take care of folks with medical emergencies, stores that had food available if you had enough gas in your car to get there, and the majority of houses did NOT collapse killing tens of thousands of people.

Thank goodness every neighbor was able to help their neighbor - that is not the case in Haiti since they are all the in same boat.

Rush Limbaugh and Pat Robinson should be run out of town for their recent statement.

And everyone that can donate money should, especially since it is so very easy to do via text message: to donate $10 text HAITI to 90999

p.s. You can text more than once!

[sandnsea]

1. An unrecommend?

Unbelievable.

If I heard right, there are 3 mil people in Port au Prince, and another 6 mil spread around the island. That's New York City. Can you imagine NYC sitting out in the ocean with only one air strip.

Terrifying.

[Tx4obama]

2. I saw that unrec and just couldn't believe it.

I know that I am not the greatest writer on earth but I thought my message was sincere ;(
It must have been a republican ;)

[gateley]

5. Can someone have written a program to automatically unrec all new posts?

Other than that, it just doesn't make sense. Except, of course, if it's Republicans. :7

[Libertas1776]

3. Not since the likes of

the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake or the 1900 Galveston Hurricane has the US faced anything as severe as Haiti is facing now. And even then, they were regional events. Given Haiti's size, this earthquake is a national disaster.

[gateley]

4. Rachel said most mobile carriers are waiving the usual texting charges -- except

Sprint who said you can sign up for a texting plan for this (whatever that means) but otherwise regular fee applies.

Also, it currently takes about 90 days for the funds to reach the recipient, although they're trying to speed it up for the Haiti situation. I'm sure they'll still need the funds in 90 days, though.

[Tx4obama]

6. Floating the bills...

I'm sure the Red Cross doesn't have to pre-pay for all of their supplies .. they probably have 90 days or whatever to pay their suppliers. And us cellphone users have 30 days or whatever to pay our phone bills. So it all works out in the wash.

As long as the Red Cross has an idea of how much money will be heading their way then they know how much they can spend.

[gateley]

14. Yeah -- I didn't even think about the cellphone users having 30 days. It's a

good deal all around. Even better if your carrier isn't Sprint!

[XemaSab]

7. I know how scary the '89 earthquake was

but I also know that what we went through was NOTHING compared to what is going on there. And the quakes were the same magnitude. x(

[Tx4obama]

8. Even though the same magnitude.. .the quake in Haiti

was closer to the surface of the ground so it made it even worse - they said on the news.
If the movement had been down further from the surface it wouldn't have been as bad - they said on the news.

So, I guess when they give us the magnitude numbers they should also include the number of miles from the earth's surface.

Something to think about.

[XemaSab]

10. That and the Bay Area was built for quakes

It's all wood and steel here... Our building codes are for real.

Part of the thing that sucks so bad about Haiti is how many lives could have been saved with responsible forestry and responsible building codes.

[sabrina 1]

9. Very nice post. I remember reading about Ike. I'm glad you

survived it. I've never been in a major disaster so you're right, there is no way to know how it feels.

I wish the media would go back to places that have been hit with disasters a year or so later and see how they are doing. I remember Ike as I said, but we never hear anything about it anymore, have they rebuilt and did everyone get back to their homes.

I think of disasters like the earthquake in Pakistan eg, and the Tsunami and wonder what happened to all those people.

I hope we don't forget Haiti also ~

[Electric Monk]

11. Indonesian tsunami doesn't count, I guess

Wrong hemisphere?

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001439.html

2004
Dec. 26, Sumatra, Indonesia: magnitude 9.0 earthquake, off the west coast of Sumatra, caused a tremendously powerful tsunami in the Indian Ocean that hit 12 Asian countries, killing more than 225,000 and leaving millions homeless. It was the deadliest tsunami in history.

[Tx4obama]

12. Please tell us more...

Did they have no access by water/ports or roads into the country, and only one landing strip at the airport?
I am serious... what problems did the rescue teams have accessing the land to bring in relief items, doctors, water, food, etc?

No one said that there were not 'other' disasters that killed large amounts of people.

I believe my OP was mainly regarding not being able to access the SURVIVORS to provide help.
And how the SURVIVORS feel and have to deal with the aftermath.

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. Actually they had similar problems at Aceh

what was the saving grace was that as dramatic as it was and it killed over 20K, it was a mess for logistics teams.

But Aceh had similar problems

[amborin]

16. 68,000 killed in China's 2008 earthquake

[DonCoquixote]

15. Oh don't worry

Thanks to the GOP in Florida, if Florida gets hit with a Cat 4 or 5, we will see our very own version of Haiti throughout the whole state. The GOP's donors are still building cheap, flimsy homes at warp speed, in areas that should never have houses in them, empowered by Crist gutting every development law he can. Rush won;t mind, because he knows that the people who will die are more likely to be the people he wants dead anyway.

I hear many GOP people complain when they are compared to Nazi's; that is unfair and wrong,

(hang on, there is a method to the madness)

With all dues respect to any Jews, Slavs, and other victims of World War II, let me propose this idea. When the Nazi's decided to carry out Genocide, they were a bit more honest about what they did. They built Camps and infernal machines to kill. The Nazi's were scum, but at least they risked getting shot at, instead of hiding behind mercenaries. What Rush and his followers want to do is simply benefit from starving to death, without taking any risk themselves. The Nazis were Predators, whereas Conservatives are merely scavengers. The sort of creatures that wait for a kill, then feast on the carrion.

[uppityperson]

17. Good thoughts, but my problem with that text donation is it is ARC

American Red Cross, not International Red Cross. Yes, it is fast and easy but ARC has shown to use too much of their money for themselves, and have not helped as many or as fast as they should. We gave them a thousand dollars for Katrina to see it disappear into their general coffers "for future use" even though we marked it clearly for post Katrina.

I tried to volunteer after Katrina, am a nurse. I was told I needed to go through their 3 month training program, them "might" be assigned to a shelter in WA state. If I wanted to actually go to LA or MS, I needed to be in their system already. I thanked them and went down to meet up with a bunch of unaffiliated health care providers. Several months later, my local ARC called to update their list of nurses who'd gone through their program, in case there was need locally.

I met some really great ARC volunteers, but can not give them any more money. Just because it is easy to donate doesn't mean they will spend the money they get on Haiti.

ARC may be fast and easy, but donating to IRC will get you more bang for your buck (so to speak), also MSF (doctors without borders).

http://www.icrc.org/web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/helpicrc
http://www.msf.org/