Update: 2010 JAN 18 1215 HRS
1) Americans trying to locate family members in Haiti are encouraged to contact the U. S. State Department toll-free at 888-407-4747
2) Dr. Rajiv Shah has been appointed by President Obama as Unified Disaster Coordinator for all U.S. Haiti relief efforts - contact info and bio for Dr. Shah
Dr Shah will direct USAID Haiti Relief efforts through USAID (United States Agency for International Development).
3) Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in in Port au Prince Friday. Today former President Clinton is in Port au Prince. More information about these visits is available from the State Department's special Haiti information webpage.
4) President Obama's statement and an abundance of White House resources are available at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/01/13/help-haiti
5) The U.S. Coast Guard was the first U.S. responder in Haiti after the Earthquake. The Coast Guard response time was absolutely phenomenal. Coast Guard cutters are offshore and USCG C-130s and H-65 helicopters are feverishly working to provide relief supplies.
The U.S. Navy supercarrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) is now on station off Haiti and is providing a wide range of relief and support. Dozens of transport helicopters are using Vinson's flight deck to move urgently needed supplies and equipment ashore. Vinson will remain on station at Haiti until no longer needed which is likely to be a long time from now. After this deployment Vinson will continue its move to California - story here.
The President has also deployed USNS Comfort (T-AH20) and USS Bataan (LHD-5) to Haiti. Together, these two ships will constitute the largest combined floating mobile trauma and medical care center on the planet. Both are en route to Haiti.
LHDs like USS Bataan, have hospital facilities second only to Navy hospital ships. Bataan has six fully-equipped state-of-the-art surgical centers and can accommodate 600 patients. USS Comfort, sister hospital ship of USS Mercy, can accommodate nearly 1000 bed patients under emergency disaster conditions. You can learn more about USNS Comfort's deployment here and you can get USS Bataan news here.
Additionally the Navy has deployed USS Fort McHenry (LSD-43), USS Carter Hall (LSD-50) and USS Gunston Hall (LSD-44)
In addition, medical and security units of the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division are already on scene and more are being deployed from their headquarters at Fort Bragg in North Carolina.
There are currently more than 11,000 U.S. military and other relief and rescue workers on station in Haiti.
6) For frequently updated news of what the U.S. military is doing in Haiti, please check in frequently with the Navy's Haiti Earthquake Relief webpage.
7) PBS provides an online techzine called MediaShift: Your Guide to the Digital Media Revolution. They have created an incredible resource list. Do yourself a big favor and take a look at this great resource.
Here are special Twitter and Facebook resources from MediaShift:
Twitter feeds
Twitter lists and searches
NY Times haiti-earthquake
LA Times haiti-quake
FoxNews haiti-earthquake
CNNbrk haiti
MSNBC's BreakingNews haiti-quake
NPR's haiti-earthquake
Google real-time search results for #haiti
Facebook pages
Support the Victims of the Earthquake in Haiti8) UNICEF (a branch of the United Nations) has set-up a special Haiti relief site specifically to help Haitian children. Find it here.
9) You can contact the Red Cross in the San Francisco Bay Area for more local information at: http://www.redcrossbayarea.org/
10) Visit the American Red Cross Haiti Earthquake situational update page at: http://newsroom.redcross.org/
11) President Obama is asking every American to donate $10 to the Red Cross. Visit this page of the official U. S. Government White House website (If you wish for security protection, you can manually enter the URL by typing in: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/01/14/president-haiti-first-waves-our-rescue-and-relief-workers-are-ground-and-work )
Follow Sam Spade's San Francisco and Tom Dunn at: @samspadesf
Last updated: 2010 JAN 18 1215 HRS (This is an updated version of a post that first appeared January 13, 2010)
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