Major earthquake strikes Haiti

[HuskyCaucasian]

Link

Someone refresh my memory, did the networks do a telethon for the Tsunami on '04?

[Balta1701]

Someone refresh my memory, did the networks do a telethon for the Tsunami on '04?

NBC ran it on its family of networks.

[HuskyCaucasian]

NBC ran it on its family of networks.

Cool. thanks. So, my guess is the reason there is so much more support int his telethon is because it's closer to home?

[southsider2k5]

Cool. thanks. So, my guess is the reason there is so much more support int his telethon is because it's closer to home?

 

Pretty much. Honestly, in terms of scales, I think the Boxing Day Tsunami might have been the biggest disaster for generations. We were just lucky its effects were suffered in a spot of the world that wasn't as densely populated as others, or the death toll could have been multiples of what it was.

[Controlled Chaos]

Become a fan of Home Run Inn on facebook. 1) because it's the best god dam pizza in Chicago and 2) because they donate $2 for every new fan to the American Red Cross for Haiti Relief. That's in addition to the $5,000 they already donated.

[BigSqwert]

Become a fan of Home Run Inn on facebook. 1) because it's the best god dam pizza in Chicago and 2) because they donate $2 for every new fan to the American Red Cross for Haiti Relief. That's in addition to the $5,000 they already donated.

Thanks for the heads up.

[southsider2k5]

Become a fan of Home Run Inn on facebook. 1) because it's the best god dam pizza in Chicago and 2) because they donate $2 for every new fan to the American Red Cross for Haiti Relief. That's in addition to the $5,000 they already donated.

 

It is good to see so many organizations coming together to help out.

[kapkomet]

It is good to see so many organizations coming together to help out.

 

 

Just as Limbaugh said and predicted...

 

Seriously, we are the most generous nation on earth, bar none. Whenever anything like this happens, we always do what we can, despite any other hardships or whatever else is going on here.

[knightni]

Is Kanye West going to come on and say that Barrack Obama doesn't care about black people?

[SoxAce]

Is Kanye West going to come on and say that Barrack Obama doesn't care about black people?

 

Right after he probably says "Yo Haiti.. Ima let you finish, but New Orleans was one of the worst hurricane hits of all time!"

Edited January 15, 2010 by SoxAce

[knightni]

Right after he probably says "Yo Haiti.. Ima let you finish, but New Orleans was one of the worst hurricane hits of all time!"

Funny joke, but hurricanes and earthquakes are different.

[knightni]

It's interesting that the Leno/O'Brien thread is more than twice the size of this one.

[SoxAce]

Funny joke, but hurricanes and earthquakes are different.

 

I know... so was a R&B/Pop singer (Beyonce) and a country star (Taylor Swift). Kanye still did it.

[caulfield12]

Pretty much. Honestly, in terms of scales, I think the Boxing Day Tsunami might have been the biggest disaster for generations. We were just lucky its effects were suffered in a spot of the world that wasn't as densely populated as others, or the death toll could have been multiples of what it was.

 

I think that in the end, this one will be even more remembered than the Boxing Day Tsunami.

 

Right now, they've already buried 40,000 (there's no exact numbers, they're not being documented by taking pictures of every body like they did in countries like Indonesia and Sri Lanka) or so and there's another 100,000 or more just in P au Prince alone.

 

The part of the story that hasn't emerged is the many thousands who were killed in the smaller cities outside of the capital (particularly to the south and west)....the 2nd biggest city (600-700K) west of P au Prince has barely reported anything at all, and roads are completely cut off or destroyed/non-functional.

 

Because Haiti is the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, and the existing infrasture has been more or less decimated, it's going to end up as a bigger story simply because of the proximity to the US, the historical relationship with America, the fact that it was the capital city with a population of 1.2 million or so, the pressure on Obama and the American relief efforts to surpass the Katrina response, everything is converging in a perfect storm, ala the Tiger Woods story that just dominated the news for almost 3 weeks in a row.

 

There are too many emerging storylines for this story to go away. It's not like Kashmir, where 80,000 died in an earthquake this decade and nobody remembers it. Not to mention the 4 million Haitians living outside the country, mostly in Florida and NYC, celebrities like Wyclef Jean, etc.

 

The ONLY good to come out of this is being able to finally start from scratch building an infrastructure, schools/educational system, hospitals, tourism industry, government buildings that will be completely modernized and hopefully go 50% of the way towards removing Haiti from the cyclical path of poverty it has been on for centuries.

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100116/ap_on_...ne_man_hospital

Nice story about a Haitian doctor treating hundreds of victims in his own home.

Edited January 16, 2010 by caulfield12

[caulfield12]

Thought this was worth reading...from Anderson Cooper's blog page

 

Dear Mr. President,

 

The wonderful historian, Stephen Ambrose, wrote at length about the amazing accomplishments of normal American troops during World War Two. He went as far as to suggest that their initiative was what won the war; their instinct to make decisions on the fly and adjust their battle plans, while not always waiting always for instructions from above.

 

I was fortunate enough to visit with Stephen several times before his untimely death, and he spoke passionately about his faith in the essential creativity, courage, and trustworthiness of ordinary Americans. However, when I look at situations like Haiti, Katrina, and others, I find myself wondering if our leaders these days, at all levels of management in both public and private offices, are driving that spirit into retreat.

 

Often I am frustrated by the measured lack of bravery and boldness in confronting great problems. I feel like too many leaders, faced with challenges such as a natural disaster, worry too much about having the “perfect” plan, and so they have no plan at all until it is too late. They fret so much over taking excessive risk that they start thinking any risk is unacceptable. They give up on satisfying needs, and instead focus on satisfying lawyers. And in the process, they cage the true heroes who work with them; folks who are ready to put their own concerns and careers behind the needs of others.

 

 

Don’t be mistaken. I am not a fan of cowboys who rush headlong into danger with little forethought. They often make situations only worse, and I understand why they frighten corporate and governmental leaders.

 

But greatness does not come from people who shrink endlessly from any chance of failure. Nor does leadership flow from those who deny their followers all self-determination. True leaders earn the trust of their teams, by putting trust in those people.

 

In places like Haiti, the American spirit is at its best when set free; when the “leaders” show their true judgment and greatness, by unleashing the people who have come to help…to do just that.

 

Hope you can encourage them, as the struggles down south continue.

 

And of course, Go Saints!

 

Regards,

 

Tom Foreman, CNN

[southsider2k5]

That sounds great on paper, except if you go in without a plan in a situation like this you could cause food riots, looting, and all kinds of other problems. When you are dealing with something the scope of what we are talking about, it has to take a large contingent working in unison to keep order over a process that could very easily deteriorate because of the sheer desperation of the people who are trying to get help.

[bmags]

WHY DIDNT WE LAUNCH DDAY IN 41 DAMN IT!?

[Kyyle23]

That sounds great on paper, except if you go in without a plan in a situation like this you could cause food riots, looting, and all kinds of other problems. When you are dealing with something the scope of what we are talking about, it has to take a large contingent working in unison to keep order over a process that could very easily deteriorate because of the sheer desperation of the people who are trying to get help.

 

Not to mention that every prisoner in the P-O-P prison escaped. All 4000 of them

[HuskyCaucasian]

Dear Mr. President,

 

The wonderful historian, Stephen Ambrose,

he means plagiarist.

[caulfield12]

I'm just curious if anyone here has read ZEITOUN, the Dave Eggers book about the Katrina aftermath?

 

The first thing that came to mind is WHERE the authorities (if there's such a thing in Haiti at this point) were building their Guantanamo Bay outdoor cages for all the prisoners and looters in Haiti, as the Dept. of Homeland Security did the day after the storm at the Greyhound terminal in New Orleans, actually using prisoners from Angola and other prisons from Louisiana. Of course, back then, they were also arresting (mistakenly in the case of the main character) "suspicious" individuals and somehow trying to tie them into Al-Queda attempts to further sabotage the US during a time of national emergency.

 

Hopefully everything will hold together in the next 72 hours before the the majority of US troops arrive.

[Balta1701]

[Brian]

Amazing. They are finding people alive after a week.

[kapkomet]

Amazing. They are finding people alive after a week.

 

 

I heard this evening that they found 100 people today. That's just awesome, but time's running out.

[G&T]

Another 6.1 aftershock.

Edited January 20, 2010 by G&T

[NorthSideSox72]

This quake was 35 miles NNW of PAP, and was 6.1. Since it was like 60 miles from where the previous quakes were, is that really an aftershock? Seems like a different event.

 

In any case, they are saying they can't tell how much new damage there is from this one. That might be because there was so little left to damage. But what it might do, is cause further damage in areas further north, that weren't as badly hit by the first quakes. Its like its spreading out. Ugh.