ARTICLE - HELICOPTER OVERFLY OF COUNTRY

THE PRIME MINISTER FLEW OVER THE COUNTRY BY HELICOPTER
(Haiti Libre) -

Saturday, the Prime Minister, Laurent Lamothe, joined by Senator Steven Benoît, performed an overflight of country to measure the extent of damage after the passage of Sandy.

Upon his return, the Prime Minister summarized the situation at a press conference at the airport "[...] ...we started our visit around 11:30 this morning. We made an overflight of virtually all of the South Coast. We also passed over the South East, and the Vallée of Jacmel very low, in order to see the damage. We flew over Les Cayes, Côtes-de-Fer, Cavaillons, Aquin. We also passed over Petit-Goâve, Grand-Goâve, Miragoâne [...] You know, there are 200,000 people affected who live in conditions very difficult due to flooding, and there are many gardens that are lost [...] we have a lot of work ahead of us in terms of aid, that we will be forced to bring in the coming, days, weeks and months to come. It will not be an easy thing, because there are many roads and bridges cut  [...] We also noted  a lot of erosion [...]

We will now sit to look at the action plan [...] as I have already said, we have in terms of emergency vouchers 120,000 people that we will help in 5 departments. Yesterday, we decided to add 130 million Gourdes to the emergency program to assist the population. Today we will try to get the number of emergency voucher recipients to 200,000.

We will need a lot of solidarity from the entire society, civil society, the international community; really all sectors, faced with the situation that we live in today [...] I also ask the patience of everyone, because the Government can not get help to everyone at the same time.

Today we have two mobile canteens; one in Léogâne, and the other will go to Petit-Goâve, which will give 10,000 hot meals to the victims. There will be also many baskets of solidarity that will be distributed in these areas. We will ensure that the emergency vouchers are operational on Sunday.

So that's why I did an overflight, to be able to see the extent of the problem [...] from tomorrow [Sunday], the emergency plan will start [...] the U.S. Government also made an overflight to see how to help [...] we must invest in the causes, in the prevention and not only in emergency [...] we've already invested 351 million Gourdes in aid, but it is not enough compared to what we have seen [...] Overall I can tell you that we will make every possible efforts, to assist affected populations [...]"