Haiti - Day 8

I returned to care.org today to give more towards Haiti relief (this time in honor of my Mom, whose birthday is tomorrow) and found that the Haiti relief staff have been blogging about their experience from the field. An interesting and illuminating read.

How to help Haiti in the long-term

An interesting, brief piece on improving Haiti's environment in the long-term.

Haiti - Day 7

Reuters posted a video today exploring the "increasingly lawless" state in Haiti. Note the people apparently washing themselves and dishes in stagnant water.

Haiti - Day 5

NPR put two series of incredible photographs on their site here and the NY Post/Fox News, of all outlets, offers perspective too.

Haiti - Day 4

The AP video below and the Washington Post explain it well. Dire straits, at best.

Haiti - Day 3

Water is in short supply in Haiti, but it looks as though there may be some relief in sight.

Now, to put the deliveries in perspective with some back-of-the-envelope calculations.... Let's assume that the 20,000 10-l. bottles land today and that the Carl Vinson docks and cranks out the 400,000 gal. of water/day it's capable of producing. Let's also assume that the sailors aboard the carrier don't use any of the purified water for themselves. In this case, US drinking water deliveries for the next day would total about 453,000 gal.... which means that each of the ~3 million people affected will have access to about 19 oz., less than a typical vending machine Coke bottle.

Perhaps, then, this is a reasonable question. The HuffPo puts it more harshly.

Haiti's water situation is dire...

But Peter Gleick wrote a piece with some good ideas for providing clean water, including hooking up Navy ships' desalination systems to distribution systems. Check it out here.

In his piece, Dr. Gleick mentions donating to the Red Cross or Doctors Without Borders. I would suggest considering a donation to CARE, another reputable, effective charity that works to provide emergency relief, including food, water, shelter and medical aid. I've just donated to them myself in honor of my late grandfather, Ed Robie, the former Chairman of the organization.