02:23AM -- Okay, again, too late to be coherent tonight. I never expected this to be so popular. I am going to post tomorrow or over the weekend specifically on 1) in-kind donations and 2) volunteering. There are always lots of questions on these (and tonight was no exception) and lots of well-intentioned but misinformed responses. Thanks!
12:17AM -- Okay, crazy stuff is going on on DK. I posted an update asking everyone to hang tight while I updated the diary to discuss in-kind contributions and volunteering, and the update went poof! in the night. Traffic is slowing down, so I am going to go offline for a few minutes and put my thoughts together. Stay tuned. Thanks!
Since we received news of the devastating earthquake in Haiti on Monday, there have been many diaries on the recent and recommended lists, led by the post of Dallasdoc, cosmic debris and Norbrook. The focus of these diaries has been to share information on ways to help the victims.
Since I have disaster relief experience and have spent a fair amount of time in Haiti, I thought that it might be helpful to furnish kossacks with a better understanding of exactly how disaster relief unfolds, so I floated this idea to the community last night:
I have spent a fair amount of time in Haiti and have experience in disaster relief. I was thinking of posting an insider's guide to disaster relief so that folks would have a better understanding of what it is actually like on the ground, how relief is rolled out and how their contributions and donations can be best directed at different stages of the effort to be put to the best use -- i.e. directed to which kinds of organizations and why. If you think that there would be any interest in this, I will begin work on it tonight and try to post tomorrow.
If anyone else wants to weigh in, I'd love your thoughts. It's a lot of work and I am tight on time, so if others don't find it helpful/interesting, I'll abandon the idea.
Thanks!
I thought that it might be particularly helpful for people who were deciding how to direct financial and in-kind resources, as well as provide a forum for addressing basic frustrations (Why is it taking so long to get help to the victims?) and obvious questions (How can I help?).
Many kossacks agreed and encouraged me to get something up ASAP.
I began to write this diary by trying to share much of my experience with disaster relief. Since time is of the essence and I am writing on the fly, it began to resemble a textbook (a disorganized textbook). So in the interest of getting this up as quickly as possible and meeting the community’s needs as best as possible, I’ve decided to try an experiment: I will post a brief introduction and then stick around for however long it takes to answer specific questions. This means that the comments may be long and it may take me a while to answer all of them, but I think that this will be the quickest way for me to serve the community as it tries to make sense out of supporting and understanding the relief efforts underway in Haiti.
I’ll kick off the discussion by making a few basic points.
First, there are different types of disaster relief, which for purposes of this diary, can be divided into man-made and natural disasters. Man-made are basically conflicts and wars, which develop or occur over time and often lead to displaced populations. While I am glad to answer questions on these, the focus of this diary will be natural disasters, and earthquakes, in particular.
We all know what a natural disasters are, but we may not always think about the differences between the types of disasters. Hurricanes, for example, are predictable, and vulnerable locations often have advance warning of impending disaster, which plays a huge role not just in protection of life and property, but also in disaster preparedness. Assets and personnel can be pre-positioned close to a developing impact zone and, perhaps more important, planning and preparations can often be made over the space of a few days, which, when you are racing the clock to save lives, is the equivalent of years.
Earthquakes, of course, happen without warning, so we don’t know when and where they will strike, and don’t know anything about their severity before they strike. In my mind, a devastating earthquake is the most difficult situation to deal with in disaster relief.
The earthquake in Haiti, of course, is particularly devastating for several well-known reasons:
• It was shallow and struck a densely-populated urban region.
• Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere (with the attendant corollaries about communications, transportation, quality of structures, existence of primary and tertiary medical resources, etc.)
Here are some further basic facts to help set the scene in Haiti:
• The median age is 20.
• 20% of eligible children attend secondary school.
• Approximately 40% of the population is illiterate.
• Over half the country does not have access to potable water.
• 54% of the population lives in abject poverty.
• 80% of the population lives below the poverty line.
To kick the conversation off, I offer the following questions that I hear over and over again when natural disasters occur:
• Why does it take so long to get help to the region?
• Why don’t they just drop food and water?
• Where should I send blankets, clothes, toiletries, toys, etc?
• Who should I contribute to in order to be sure that 100% of my funds are going to the victims?
• I am a doctor/nurse/engineer/tradesperson/energetic, smart, willing layperson without any technical skills, etc. How can I volunteer?
Let me know if there is any interest in these. If not, the floor's open, and I will stay as long as necessary.
