Haiti

The man at Habitat who is the senior director of the global disaster response is a man I worked alongside when I lived there. There is no man I have ever met involved in development work whom I have greater respect for. Apparently he is in the States at the main office of HFH (right down the road from me). I was THRILLED to see he will be involved.

I will be getting in touch with him to find out how to get plugged in, and will fill you in on the details.

I was just thinking today, remeber that post we had a while ago about using shipping containers for houses? Seems like a solution that may have just found a problem???

For sure, the structure would be pretty earthquake safe, since they live on ships... It would be about making them a liveable space.

Eric

Yeah, that's not bad.

They are very costly to make into residences in the US when then need to meet the building codes, but they would be quite inexpensive there (no codes).

Mods might be a little hard if welding was required (power issues).

They would also help address the land ownership issues. If you build something and later learn that there are land issues, no biggie- move it.

However, the cost of the basic container (US dollars with no mods) would be more than the cost of a finished Habitat for Humanity house.

I was thinking of the rumored container farms that ended up being one way shipped. No idea how true or the numbers, but if they are available.

The problem with that is that they are steel- which is of high enough demand...

But seeing the news today, that's still far from the top of the list WRT priorities. Now, people are dying from the injuries and the lack of medical care... One doctor who was supposed to be a news person just jumped into the help- tried to treat one person who had a badly broken arm that will probably end up being fatal due to infection and gange green...

Just too many people, too many places. It's kind of sad how the news really likes to harp on the lack of organized help, when they fully know 1) no matter how much we can send- it's quite finite vs. the scope of the disater, and 2) the damage is so great, it's very hard to get out.

Makes one feel rather hopeless, I imagine.

Eric

A constant string of small successes will yeild a big success.

Apparently, I'm not the first to think of the containers. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100115182633.htm

My Father is a member of a mission team that has been building an orphanage in Haiti. They go down two to three weeks a year to repair, expand, and improve the orphanage. They just got word that the orphanage survived the earthquake with minimal damages and no serious injury to any of the children. Unfortunately the guest house where they stay when down there collapsed killing 5. None of the dead were from the local team, but I hate to hear of that happening. A lot of the construction down there is concrete of questionable quality according to my Dad. An earthquake is probably the worst thing that could happen there.

That's correct.

Even the very nice little houses we were building with Habitat for Humanity were designed to be resistant to wind (frequent hurricanes), NOT seismic. They had concrete roofs and block walls. The blocks are hand made. Seismic activity could easily collapse a block wall with the weight of a concrete roof on top.

I have several friends who are pilots with their own planes. They are staring to coordinate assisting moving in supplies in their planes flying through the Bahamas.

Looks like I may be down there soon.

Maybe not the place to ask, but I just don't have any money to donate. What I do have is time. What can I do to help? I wish there was something I could do if I could get there, but I don't see my skill set helping at all until cleanup stages and rebuilding stages begin.

SVreX wrote: That's correct. Even the very nice little houses we were building with Habitat for Humanity were designed to be resistant to wind (frequent hurricanes), NOT seismic. They had concrete roofs and block walls. The blocks are hand made. Seismic activity could easily collapse a block wall with the weight of a concrete roof on top.

Dad was saying that block making was a cottage industry down there. He said people will make a mold and set up on the side of the road with a bag of concrete and a jug of water and make and sell them right there. No quality control required. I never realized that earthquakes were even a threat down there. When your choices are no house and homemade blocks, I would go with the homemade blocks too. Wood is very scarce and expensive apparently because their forests were cut down long ago.

Couple of years ago I was in St. Vincent and saw one of those little block factories. Open shed, 20x20 feet. Stack of drying blocks on one side, pile of sand and gravel on the other. One guy doing it all, all by hand. Tough way to make a living. Tectonic plates are a hazard throughout the Caribbean. Trinidad has tremors all the time, like San Fransisco does. Little ones, but reminders of what could be.

Yep. Handmade blocks. I've made thousands.

And what did your hands look like after?

Do you mean the bleeding, or the callouses?

And your wife is very understanding, I assume!!

My wife made blocks too.

Very cool wife. No problem with hard hands, I guess. My wife wants to go to Haiti now.

My wife does not.