Haiti Housing Update = Invitation to more disasters

Basically we have NGOs, which by their own admission, are not experienced in the home building business, building structures that do not measure up to international standards of protection from Hurricanes, Quakes, or nite epidemic of rapes, such as what you can see here:

http://www.unesco-ipred.org/gtfbc/

Everyone knows that Haiti needs Building Codes. Earthquakes don't kill people, Buildings that fall down kill people.You'd think in the rebuilding effort, that we'd get buildings that won't fall down in future quakes similar to Jan 12 intensity. There are two fault lines going through the island, with scientists predicting how large a quake to expect where, in approx five different sets of target spots, they just can't predict when. Well guess what, Haiti still has no building codes, and housing is being built on the bullseyes of future predicted quakes, mudslides, flooding, etc. without adequate protection for what is predicted.The main reason they are slow to get started, with the Transitional Housing, is the Haiti Land Tenure problem.

The UN NGO shelter cluster

http://groups.google.com/group/shelterhaiti2010?lnk

has had some postings regarding their plans for "Emergency Shelter" (tents & tarps)"Transitional Housing" (look to me to be a cross between an outhouse and tool house)It has been a while since I looked at any of those ... you could use SEARCH on the discussion archives to locate what I remember.Near the top of THIS page

https://sites.google.com/site/shelterhaiti2010/information-management

There are TWO Excels that you can download.They give statistics on the number of the 2 kinds of "shelters" that the NGOs are delivering.Note that they plan 128,000 of the "Transitional" and have built less than 500 so far.

The ratio of people to toilets is abominable. I occasionally have indigestion & while sitting in the toilet I did the math ... in a 24 hour day, there's people in the camps in which their share of the available time in a toilet is like 5-10 minutes a day. Some of these toilets overflow when there is heavy rain there, plus there is a serious problem with mosquitoes.This video (22 minutes long) explains why the work of NGOs are often largely dysfunctional, in all kinds of disasters.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TC7M_g0foJk&feature=related

Here is weather situation right now:Recent Heavy Rains with serious consequences to some camps in Port au Prince.Think Ground Saturation.

http://biosurveillance.typepad.com/haiti_operational_biosurv/2010/05/heavy-rainfall-inundates-portauprince-idp-camps.html

Incidentally I advise people to put this BIOSURVEILLANCE site into their News Readers, since it gives excellent information on the abominable health situation in Haiti, warning which medical threats are getting worse. If you scroll thru recent postings to that site, you will find one about people getting forceably evicted from camps with no notice, sometimes in the middle of the night. I have located multiple such incidents, and most recently have been keeping my list up-to-date here:

http://haitirewired.wired.com/group/architectureforhaiti/forum/topics/forced-evictions-of-quake

A journalist has informed me that the Gov of Haiti has imposed a two week moratorium on the evictions of people camped on private school grounds. This after quite a few people got evicted from the grounds of schools and churches.Weather pretty same as usual, nothing much worse, at least thru May 19Expect less rainfall overall in next 7 days

http://reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/LYLN-85EQR5?OpenDocument&rc=2

Bottom 1/2 of this document is a color coded map estimating # millimeters of rain to fall where ... Most of Haiti will be under 10 mm (1/3 inch), with the south quaked region looks like up to 40 mm (1.2 inch), much heavier East end of Dominican Republic. Wow - look at Panama, Costa Rica, Northern Tip of South America!!

http://reliefweb.int/rw/fullmaps_am.nsf/luFullMap/FF0FB6D3549BD35885257722006B67B2/$File/map.pdf?OpenElement

Translation / Conversion
1 millimeter = 0.0393700787 inchesThe Rainy Season is right now. We are near the end of El Nino, which means more rain than usual at this time.

The Hurricane Season is Imminent. Scientists cannot predict exactly, but La Nina is expected some time in 2010, which means worse Hurricane Season than usual. Haiti is facing a perfect storm.

It is my understanding that, prior to Jan 12 quake, there were Public Buildings rated as safe from a Hurricane, that people went into for safety when Hurricanes coming. All those, in the area where the earthquake was, are now gone.

We are also watching activity at an active Volcano in the area, Soufrière Hills currently is only making a mess of the West Indies Island of Montserrat. In February it pulled an Iceland, but the wind direction was less disruptive to aviation.

I do not believe the "Transitional Housing" that the 40 NGOs are now building, will protect the people of Haiti from Hurricanes and Earthquakes, only from Rainy season, and SOME of them (not all) will protect women from rapists unlocking their homes with knives.

There is something in the works to address that reality, through the Haiti Action Plan that the Donor's Conference agreed to March 31 at the UN in NYC. You can download info about that from here.

http://www.haiticonference.org/documents.html

and see how wisely the money is being spent here

http://www.refondation.ht/index.jsp?&lng=en

However, it was not until the end of April that the Haiti Parliament approved this Plan, and it was not until a few days ago that there was any money for it, which I explain here.

http://haitirewired.wired.com/profiles/blogs/haiti-reconstruction-fund-of

At the rate this is going, Hurricane Season 2010 will have been here and gone by the time there's any building of homes that are safe from hurricanes.