In assuming that $50,000 was the extent of US help to the flood and landslide victims in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. This New York Times article and this one as well show that the US military currently serving as peacekeepers in Haiti have played a significant role in ferrying food, medicine and water to the stricken areas:
The gap between the aid that is being delivered now and the aid that is needed is enormous, he said. "Here in Mapou, we planned aid for 1,000 families, but 3,000 families are affected," he said, figuring on five people to a family.In all, some 75,000 people in and around Mapou and Fond Verrettes, two of the hardest-hit Haitian towns, face "a continuing food emergency" for months to come, he said.
Fourteen helicopters of the American-led international military force that occupied Haiti after President Jean-Bertrand Aristide fled under United States pressure on Feb. 29 are now the lifeline for those tens of thousands of hungry, homeless villagers.
Almost all those helicopters belong to the United States military, which President Bush has said will leave Haiti in June after a mission intended to restore a measure of stability to the country.
"We rely on the military for airlift," Mr. Gauvreau said. Come summer, aid agencies may have to resort to barges, rafts and mules to carry food, medicine and shelter to a displaced population whose numbers may reach 100,000 or more.
The value of these airlifts cannot be underestimated in areas where the already difficult road journeys have been made impossible by the horrific flooding. To give you an idea as to how rapid the flooding has been consider this:
Two weeks of heavy rains, which continued Thursday, became a deadly torrent at dawn on Monday. In Haiti, as much as five feet fell in 36 hours on the town of Fond Verrettes, in a valley about 40 miles east of the capital, Port-au-Prince, officials said.
That's 1.67 inches per hour. Considering that Haiti is so severely deforested, one needn't think hard to consider how severe the mudslides must have been.
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