SPRING LAKE -- International Aid is preparing an aggressive and focused response to the death and devastation brought by Hurricane Gustav to Caribbean islands and the U.S. Gulf Coast over the Labor Day weekend.
Sonny Enriquez, IA's Senior Advisor for Disaster Services, is coordinating relief programs with several faith-based groups in Haiti to provide medical equipment and the innovative Lab-in-a-Suitcase, along with life-promoting HydrAidTM BioSand Water Filters, for people in the hardest-hit regions of that impoverished nation.
An estimated 2 million Americans living along the Gulf Coast were displaced by the storm, which weakened significantly as it hit land on the U.S. continent during the holiday on Monday. In addition, nearly 100 deaths have been attributed to the hurricane, most of them in Haiti.
"We are grateful to God that Gustav did not inflict the scope and severity of damage that had been predicted just hours before landfall in this country," said Myles Fish, IA's President and CEO. "But there is major damage from Gustav in the Caribbean, and there is tremendous need along the Gulf Coast for clean up, home repair and further disaster assessment and response.
Fish said IA will solicit disaster relief funds from its donors to participate in the response, working alongside a network of organizations with whom IA partnered in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf region in 2005.
"Our response will be customized, and quite different from Katrina," Fish explained. "Fortunately, in the U.S. the destruction of Gustav does not require a response on the scale of Katrina's, and this time the federal and state government leaders were much more prepared and much more collaborative.
Fish noted that a series of hurricanes, including Hanna, Ike and Josephine, are expected to roll through the Caribbean in the next several days, adding to the risk of disease and death - and the urgency of medical equipment and assistance in Haiti and other affected areas of the Caribbean.
"We are prepared to do all we can for the victims of these fierce weather events - especially for those who may not have the resources and resiliency we have in the U.S. and whose plight is not prominently reported by U.S. news organizations," Fish said.
