Pure Water for the World

Dear Friends,
To continue giving you a bird’s eye view on the situation in Haiti from our perspective, we have summarized the emails that we have received over the weekend from the Pure Water for the World staff and others:

All but one of the staff are accounted for, but he hopes the problem is a lack of the ability to communicate with the office and nothing else. Two staff members have suffered injuries. Four people have lost family members, and everyone has lost close friends in the earthquake. Many have lost their homes.

He was able to obtain gas and diesel in Saint Marc after a long wait and a high payment to be able to buy more than 5 gallons and fill up the tanks.  Although there is supposed to be a 20+ day supply of fuel is available in Haiti, and a shipment is expected next week from Venezuela, many of the gas stations in Port-au-Prince have either been destroyed or were not open and fuel is hard to get; some places are charging $4.00 a gallon.

“In 2 locations where we delivered filters, there was almost no water at all. We have been trying to concentrate our efforts in the Delmas neighborhoods since we know them best and have some neighborhood connections. We got diverted to Champs de Mars today by an accident, and partly by wrong assessment of the situation, but it turned out to be a window on a far more extreme situation than even here in Delmas. In Champs de Mars near the palace we set up 10 ceramic filters at an improvised clinic set up by the Institute of Ethnology, who have taken it on themselves to try to do something about the situation. They have virtually no medical supplies and no water even for the clinic. They had been supplying water to some of the literally thousands of people camped in Champs de Mars. The chance of a disease outbreak is of course very high, no sanitation facilities, and people are drinking water of poorer and poorer quality.”

David said that they have distributed 47 ceramic filters and set up 3 biosand filters, but the real need is for water of any kind so that we can use our technologies. He has been able to get at least one water tanker load delivered and hopes to do more. The filter breakage at the factory was not as bad as originally thought, and he planned to begin distributing the remaining 80 intact ceramic filters on Sunday (120 are already distributed).

He said a family camped next to the filter factory compound is helping with security, that the wall that is down can be rebuilt  easily, and that the other wall is leaning but not going to fall unless there is another earthquake.

MINUSTAH (United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti), David said, “has been barely functional and supplies are stopped up at the airport partly due to straight disorganization and partly due to lack of fuel. Some people are leaving the city but people are also streaming into town to find their missing relatives. The big aid agencies are paralyzed because their assessment is that it is too insecure to act, which of course only compounds the problem. People need to leave town. The aid agencies need to set up food distribution and medical clinics outside town, where people will also have access to locally grown food. The locals are going broke, because they can’t get their food into town.”  Simply dropping food is also causing more problems than helping.

Carolyn Meub, Executive Director, reports from Rutland:

The staff house that also serves some office roles in Port-au-Prince has been deemed safe by an engineer, and staff members are using it during the day but not staying in it over night because of the concern about after-shocks. The workers’ house near the filter factory was destroyed.  We believe that our office at the MSH head quarters is damaged and not accessible with a lot destroyed.

A team of doctors associated with PWW will leave Burlington, Vermont, this week, taking with them medical supplies, communication tools and cash for paying the staff and buying fuel. PWW’s bank was destroyed, and records may be lost. Efforts are also underway to get cash into our staff through the Dominican Republic.

Carolyn had a very helpful conversation with Amy Mina of Save the Children in Guatemala, about areas to consider in developing a longer range plan for responding to the disaster, including security, medical/emergency planning, media relations, staffing and fundraising.

Thank you all for your support, and we will continue to keep you updated.