Haiti (edited just for amerikangod ;) )
 

living in earthquake country my heart truly goes out to the people of Port-au-Prince in Haiti and surrounding countryside suffering after this devastating earthquake.. After living through so many earthquakes it is almost unimaginable to think of them as being so able to bring a city to a stand still...

I pray for all the folks in Haiti. 45,000 Americans in-country have attracted quite a bit of international and US help, much thanks and love to all those who are helping.

American Red Cross Pledges Initial $1 Million to Haiti Relief

Send a $10 Donation by Texting ‘Haiti’ to 90999
Editorial note: You can make a donation by calling 1-800-REDCROSS or 1-800-257-7575 (Spanish) or click on the Donate Now button.

National Headquarters
2025 E Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20006
www.redcross.org

Contact: Public Affairs Desk
FOR MEDIA ONLY
media@usa.redcross.org
Phone: (202) 303-5551


WASHINGTON, Wednesday, January 13, 2010 —
The American Red Cross is sending money, supplies and staff to Haiti to support relief efforts there after yesterday’s earthquake, which caused catastrophic damage and loss of life.
According to reports, as many as three million people may have been affected by the quake, which collapsed government buildings and caused major damage to hospitals in the area.
The Red Cross is contributing an initial $1 million from the International Response Fund to support the relief operation, and has opened its warehouse in Panama to provide tarps, mosquito nets and cooking sets for approximately 5,000 families.
In addition to Red Cross staff already in Haiti, six disaster management specialists are being deployed to the disaster zone to help coordinate relief efforts. At this time, the American Red Cross is only deploying volunteers specially trained to manage international emergency operations.
There has been an outpouring of support from the public. To help, people can make an unrestricted donation to the International Response Fund at www.redcross.org or by calling 1-800-REDCROSS (1-800-733-2767). The public can also help by texting “Haiti” to 90999 to send a $10 donation to the Red Cross, through an effort backed by the U.S. State Department. Funds will go to support American Red Cross relief efforts in Haiti.
Debris and collapsed bridges are making access to many areas extremely difficult. Telephone service and electricity are out in many places. Haitian Red Cross staff worked throughout the night to rescue people still trapped in their homes and provide first aid. The priority remains to provide food, water, temporary shelter, medical services and emotional support.
The American Red Cross already had fifteen staff in Haiti providing ongoing HIV/AIDS prevention and disaster preparedness programs. All are reported to be safe and responding to the disaster.
To date, there have been no requests for blood products from the government of Haiti. However, some patients at an affected facility in Haiti have been moved to a Guantanamo Bay hospital, and the Armed Services Blood Program has asked both the Red Cross and Florida Blood Services for support for those patients. In addition, the American Red Cross will be sending a shipment of blood products to the United Nations Mission in Haiti.
While communication with those in Haiti is still difficult, people should contact the U.S. Department of State, Office of Overseas Citizens Services at 1-888-407-4747 if trying to reach a U.S. citizen living or traveling in Haiti. If trying to reach a Haitian citizen, callers should continue to call or contact other family members who live nearby.
While donations are coming in for Haiti relief, the initial American Red Cross response is made possible in part by contributions from members of the Red Cross Annual Disaster Giving Program (ADGP). The following partners designate a portion of their ADGP commitment to the International Response Fund: American Express, John Deere Foundation, Kimberly-Clark Corporation, Morgan Stanley and State Street Foundation.

It must really suck to live in Haiti. You're always hearing about natural disasters killing hundreds of thousands of people all the time...

It must really suck even more to live in an earthquake devestated Haiti in the middle of a global recession. I imagine aid will be thin on the ground compared to what might have been given had economic conditions in the rest of the world not been so poor. Bad timing Haiti, bad timing.

What is it with natural disasters causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands happening around the xmas holiday period? Does anyone remember the Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004?

I've been watching about this on the news. It is so sad. The destruction is crazy! It is amazing to see the cracks running through the building remnants. Seems so unreal.It makes you realize what nature is capable of.

Intelligent design is so perfect, earthquakes and all.

in a city where 80% of the population live in deep poverty, in ramshackle shacks, and nearly half the country lives in Port Au Prince.....fucking horror

I was shocked that nobody made a thread about this yesterday.

unfortunatley, I had used up my thread quota on Diesel's birthday.


we donated yesterday. hope you bleeding-heart commies do the same.

those people had nothing to begin with.

may Legba bless you.

CNN has gotten hold of a video filmed merer seconds after the earthquake hit. some rough shit, viewer discretion is advised they say
http://cnn.com/video/?/video/world/2....aftermath.cnn

also...

a hex on Pat Robertson. may yr hatred be returned thricefold.

that made me cry.

The company I work for just donated $10,000. Guess they're not as cheap as I thought they were.

so that's what happened to Haiti....

this is neither the appropriate time nor place to bring this into this discussion.

my prayers and thoughts and love to all those in Haiti, lets not get political or ideological over helping our brothers and sisters in need.

lets ask pat robertson!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNgXNnCyamA

This is very sad, and now gangs armed with machetes are ruling the streets apparently. Very depressing. When disaster strikes it would be nice to see some kind of brother hood.

the more ive read about the situation in haiti, the worse it sounds. Im ashamed to say i know absolutely pot-zero about the country and its socioeconomic situation, but the best we can do is donate to the Red Cross, although it sounds as though the work should have been put in there some time ago.

You must spread some proportionate response around before giving it to Suchfriendsaredangerous again

good call w/ the thread, & beware of scams & hoaxes too.

The Haiti quake could have killed 300,000 people, thats more than the Tsunami.

The Haiti quake could have killed 300,000 people, thats more than the Tsunami.

Haiti's the world's oldest black republic, and the second oldest republic in the Americas, only younger than the USA. It declared independence from France in the early 1800s after a sucessful slave uprising - except it wasn't sucessful, really - Haiti had to pay France enormous financial reparations in exchange for diplomatic recognition, the cycle of international loans for this and resulting economic decline lasted for well over 100 years and left Haiti one of the poorest, most ghastly places in the world to live. And I think it just got a whole lot worse.

So the French are to blame for Haiti's crippling poverty. They should be ashamed of themselves.

look how fucking deforested much of Haiti, the west side of the island of Hispaniola, is, due to the massive poverty ad people felling every tree they can find for fuel, and wood. The Dominican Republic side is now being deforested.

It's a fucking tragedy!
Donate!

I blame Christopher Columbus.

I heard 200,000 today. Who knows. I might be going down next week. Fucking awful situation developing now, on top of the initial tragedy.

now that its been three days bodies across the country, not just in Port-au-Prince are starting to smell.. it is literally a nightmare on the scale of a nuclear explosion.. surprisingly the people on the streets are said to be rather polite about things. of course, this is changing as the people get frustrated with the lack of progress by the foreign aid crews coming in slow motion, after they have been digging with their bare hands for days.. I can understand both perspectives, I just hope for the severity of the situation that both the Haitians and the Foreign Aid Workers and understand each other, lest this thing take a turn for the worst. It is on the virge of shifting from a natural disaster to a man-made catastrophe. I pray for the best. Please everyone, keep up the support, the real problem in Haiti is not today, but long term in the coming months and years .


christopher columbus is a damn blasted liar!

I was quite shocked when I read this. Is the US using the natural disaster as a front for imperialist motives?

http://www.progressive.org/mp/danto011910.html

toothpaste is one of the most popular items on the street. people are lining their nostrils with it to cover the smell of death with minty freshness... I pray for those truly, what impresses me most is that people are so relatively calm and peaceful about all this..

wonder if they are gonna build any Disneyland esque memorials to the people of haiti?

I heard there was another big aftershock this morning. 6.1 I think ....shit's getting worse

i wonder where are now the super-nations of this world in those moments...if they are only super-nations cause the weapons of ass destruction?? maybe they are...

one of the problems with getting outside international aid is that, even in a catastrophe, there is so much bullshit red tape, on both sides of this issue.
Permssion must be gotten and kickbacks must be prepared.

don't be so silly. jews have money, what do the haitians have?

the fugees.

^^^ I'm not so sure about that. Wyclef's attempt to justify the $250,000 that his Haitian charity paid to his own Haitian tv station sounds a little shakey.

So when is Obama going to annex Haiti to the US making way for his exploitation of the country's natural resources?

only a white president can do that like the US has done several times in the past (US has occupied Haiti from 1915-1934).. if a black president were to do such a thing they would say it is a racial thing and it wouldn't fly (lucky for Haiti ;)) just like ol Barack dissed the Black Caucus and left brother Henry Louis Gates Jr in the cold..

white presidents can cater the special interests of white voting blocks and lobbyist groups, where as a black president couldn't dare support black interests, the white people would start to get nervous that maybe that 40 acres and a mule might begin to materialize, and adjusted for inflation is approximately $32,500 USD (2009) X 40,000,000 (american black population 2008)

most regular busineses that claim to be helping in any case of crisis or catastrophe, are actually using the sad events to promote themselves, to line their pockets with money, or to better ingratiate themselves with the poloticians who are more intimately involved with the crisis.

Doctors Without Borders, and the Red Cross, are who people who people should be directly donating to.