is working hard in partnership with other governmental and non-
governmental orgs in the relief efforts. (technically the efforts
immediately following a disaster is called the relief phase and
following that is the recovery phase though there is a bit of overlap
between the two)
If you all hadn't heard there was another large earthquake in the
pacific that triggered a tsunami warning last week. The warning siren
went off and the response to the warning this time was immediate and
nearly universal. This type of response of course is expected
immediately following a disaster. I went out with the evacuation
point assessment team from the Red Cross to help take count of the
various demographics at a number of evacuation points around the Apia
area. In trying to get to them, a huge vulnerability of the Apia area
became apparent. Traffic was at a crawl due to, not only the dense
population trying to exit the downtown area but also due to the number
of people going into the downtown area obviously going to get people.
I sincerely hope this is addressed by those responsible for disaster
preparedness here because in the event of a rapidly developing tsunami
in the Apia area like the one that hit the south coast, well, you get
the idea.
Back to the relief/recovery topic, things are moving along, slowly, though
slowly is a relative term. When considering the situation things are
progressing at a respectable rate and support in a variety of areas is
being given as best as the current capacity will allow. A large
number of those effected have relocated into the highlands and do not
plan to return to the coast. This, of course, presents problems for
the rebuilding process and reconnecting electricity, water and
sanitation services to those affected. People are now living in areas
with little utility infrastructure and road development. I am not
aware of the plan for remedying this at the current time but as far as
I know the framework for the recovery is supposed to be coming out
soon. The Red Cross is purchasing water tanks to distribute to
families in need so that will help some with the current lack of water
and latrines are being or have been dug to help with sanitation.
Access to electricity is obviously still a problem. From what I have
heard access to news and updates also remains a problem. Most people
don't have TVs or radios and are relying on word of mouth for news
updates. I believe the Red Cross is working to get battery operated
radios, which I am really hoping they get soon. I know in Cedar
Rapids when we were hit by the flood one of the most frustrating
things people dealt with in the recovery was not knowing what support
they were going to get in the rebuilding process and it appears the
same is occurring here.
When I go in to work tomorrow I hope to get a good update on a lot of
this and will be sure to post the new information. You can also check
out the red cross samoa website for more updates.
(www.redcross.org.ws) I am trying to keep it up to date. Please
excuse any layout miscues and grammatical and other errors in the
articles, updates, etc. For the layout, I am not a computer wizard
and am at the mercy of the program they are using for the website and
the programmer in charge at the ISP. And for the writing, I did take
one journalism class in college but I forgot most of that class (and
from what I remember it was useless anyway) and I find it hard to
write without inserting sarcasm or cracking jokes at the expense of
others. My blog posts are actually quite tame for me because of Peace
Corps rules I can't really unleash the guns, but trust me, it's
tempting some times! So you can imagine the difficulty I am having writing for the website.
Oh, the new volunteers are here. Something like 24, I think like 19
or 20 are girls so naturally we've got Peace Corps guys walking around
pissing on everything to mark their territory. Big swing in the
gender demographic, as can be expected with a big influx of elementary
level teachers. I met some of the new vols, don't remember their
names though. I'm sure some are interesting, some are not so much and
some will give me an instant headache. I will meet them all
eventually and they will all be categorized in time. If you haven't
noticed already I'm not one to post on personal information or
attributes on other vols so if you are interested best to check out
another vol's blog.
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