DEVASTATION IN HAITI

Most hospitals, houses, schools, roads and grocery stores are gone.  100,000 people are thought to be dead.  Food, water, electricity, medical supplies and shelter are basically non-existent.  Now the citizens of Haiti are looking for any way possible to pick up the pieces of their lives and try to keep moving on.

As the scope of the devastation from the magnitude 7.0 earthquake became clearer, Haitian President René Préval said Port-au-Prince has been virtually leveled, and the Caribbean nation is now almost entirely dependent on outside help just to survive.

Piles of bodies line the streets. The Parliament and Presidential Palace have been destroyed. Even the main prison crumbled, unleashing hundreds of inmates.  Phone networks remain overwhelmed as relatives in the U.S. and elsewhere continue to seek news of their loved ones.  Aid organizations have begun what they say may be one of the biggest, most complex relief efforts in recent history. The absence of clean water, electricity and medical supplies could result in more deaths in the days ahead unless dramatic action is taken.  “We’ve never seen anything like this before,” said Curt Welling, president and CEO of AmeriCares. “Pretty much all the vital infrastructure in Port au Prince seems to have been destroyed. This could all take years to repair.”