One Year Ago Today

Entry 12:45 PM. One year ago this minute, Haiti was home to one of the worst disasters in recent memory.... later that day an earthquake hit.

A Year Ago

I want to thank NASA for running up and taking this picture of Haiti for me. The island there in the middle, that's La Gonave, home to 100,000 precious people.

One year ago this week a terrible thing happened. On January 12, 2009, at 4:53 in the afternoon the earth shook Haiti hard for about one half minute. "This was our 9-11," I remember someone saying.

Who Knew.

We are getting ready to ship this 6-ft. tall pallet of IV fluids to La Gonave to have it ready should cholera hit the island full force during 2011. As is always the case with container shipments to Haiti, this will likely take months to clear... all the more reason to get it on its way as soon as we can.

(We are STILL waiting on our feeding program supplies to be released from customs, shipped from Michigan in August).

The mainstay of cholera treatment is rapid fluid replacement. Because of cholera's sudden onset and rapid disease course, many on the island will not be able to get to these waiting IV's. Should cholera break out on the other side of La Gonave (several days' walk / burro ride from the hospital), the IV's and supplies could be moved by boat or truck to that site where medical personnel could use them to save lives.

Who knew, last January 2nd, the events that lay in store for us in 2010? Who knew.