Nevada Hoya
Blue & Gray (over 10,000 posts)
Posts: 18,484
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Haiti
Jan 19, 2010 12:08:36 GMT -5
Post by Nevada Hoya on Jan 19, 2010 12:08:36 GMT -5
CRS update:
We wanted to update you on the situation in Haiti and how Catholic Relief Services is responding. Almost immediately following the earthquake, CRS began delivering lifesaving supplies, including food and water, to desperate survivors. The supplies were already in place in CRS' Port-au-Prince warehouse.
"We are fortunate to have had water in our warehouse," says Karel Zelenka, country representative for CRS Haiti. "We also trucked in family food kits from Les Cayes."
CRS has a staff of 313 on the ground, with more personnel arriving daily. CRS Haiti's headquarters building was damaged but did not collapse. Until its structural integrity is assured, aid workers are working and sleeping outside in tents or cars.
Additional food will arrive soon. "Fifteen hundred metric tons of wheat and oil will arrive in port shortly," says Schuyler Thorup, Regional Director for CRS Latin America. "We will distribute it immediately."
In the neighboring Dominican Republic, CRS is preparing food packages to feed 50,000 people. The packages are five-gallon buckets loaded with ready-to-eat foods that don’t need to be cooked. CRS is also readying water storage containers, water purification tablets, hygiene kits, cookware and plastic sheeting in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
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Nevada Hoya
Blue & Gray (over 10,000 posts)
Posts: 18,484
|
Haiti
Jan 20, 2010 16:07:15 GMT -5
Post by Nevada Hoya on Jan 20, 2010 16:07:15 GMT -5
Each day more CRS staff from around the globe arrive in Haiti, joining our existing staff of just over 300. Our headquarters building in Haiti was damaged but did not collapse. While aftershocks continued—including a 6.1 temblor this morning— staff slept outside and worked at desks pulled into the streets. Another CRS update:
Despite enormous logistical challenges, one week after the devastating earthquake CRS staff has unloaded 120 containers (2100 metric tons) of vegetable oil and grains from the U.S. government onto the only operating wharf in Port-au-Prince. We are in the process right now of arranging for secure transport to our warehouse, where it will be distributed to the growing number of camps.
CRS has been asked by the United Nations to lead the response at one of the first formally organized camps, located at a golf course, where as many as 50,000 people are sleeping every night. CRS has arranged to supply the camp with water, food, and plastic sheeting for shelter, which continue to be trucked in from CRS warehouses in the neighboring Dominican Republic, where volunteers are working continuously to keep additional relief supplies coming.
CRS has formed six medical teams to provide health care at shelters and area hospitals and CRS teams have already distributed medical supplies and drugs. In addition, Project C.U.R.E. has donated 3000 pounds of additional medical supplies that are en route.
Three operating rooms at St. Francois de Sales Hospital—which withstood the quake — are now running, and surgeries are being performed on the most critically injured patients. Food, water and medical supplies have also been provided to the hospital. An AIDSRelief site, this is one of Haiti's oldest hospitals and one that CRS helped build. Its mission is to provide free care and treatment for the poor.
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