Chile Forum

Click to enlarge

Zandra Valenzuela and Dr. Charles Whiting in one of the camps on Isla Mocha.





Vince flew this family off the island. We are today sending gifts for the kids on the island donated by Hogar de Cristo in Temuco, and a group of psychologist and theoripist from the mayor university in Temuco. We are also sending short instructions on how to purify water.

Click to enlarge. That is fishnet and seaweed on top of that machine. Those are houses rolled on their roof, and boats in land about 1 km in the background.

Divers for the gope, vince flew to the island with diving equipement. They are searching for a little girl and a woman that were swept away by the wave. Vince also flew the family for 30 mins searching the entire island at about 500 feet, while we took the doctors in to town. They still have not found them.

Type of aid being sent


where people are living

Big thanks to the guys at Un techo para Chile, Los Angels. They found aid, and got to the airport with only 45 mins notice before we had to take off for isla Mocha. They brought bags with a small kit for about a family. contents above, we moved about 80 of those 5-10 pound bags (we had to guess, because we had no scale, so getting off the ground was tricky).


Vince just called, he said so far he has done 20 flights. We are working on getting calculations on distance, because it is a lot.

Another plane load of aid: tents, medicines, rice, clothing, among other things.

Yes, that is me landing the airplane in Temuco. Vince let me fly for about 30 mins, and then started talking me through a steep bank and a full landing. I got within about 30 feet of touch down, and then chickened out and told him he had to take the stick. I recall how many times I crashed on flight simulators at that point, and decided likly not a good time to loose our lives or the plane. I will likly have plenty of opportunities to crash planes later.

So, everyone can see the sort of bang for the buck we are getting just on about $3,000 we have on hand right now. If we can get the pay pal funds that should have been refunded today to everyone, sent using western union or other methods we can likly pull off the rest of the week at least and perhaps more. We are working on a break down of current accounting so we can see where we stand. Right now, I think we can operate through tomorrow at least or perhaps thursday.

We really want to look in to getting a boat. A big fishing boat, that can land aid along the coast and on the islands so we can start moving sustained volumes of assistance and building materials. More as we get this figured out.

Hogar de Cristo has joined us also. One of the cordinators called us, and said he was sick of the lack of cordination between everyone and too a personal leave day to come work with us on getting more aid even though he was still working so that no one from Santiago would interrupt what he was doing with us. He was the one that got his hands on the gifts for the kids.

This is what I am talking about. These are the boats at the bay in lota. We need just one of these big fishing boats running aid. There are hundreds of these in Chile, most doing little to nothing right now.


The wave washed over the entire northern part of the island of isla Mocha. Every beach in this photos was hit, and the wave completely covered the northern tip.

Refund received today. Will Western Union new payment tomorrow.

Deepest Gratitude to you all for pulling together and stepping in.

This is one of our big lessons -- to not rely on government and established organizations to do it for us in a time of crisis, but to do it ourselves.

Big big thanks to everyone.

The crazy thing is that in the middle of all this, our office is fully functional and taking care of clients. We have not even had time to put our office downtown back together yet, but we are still handling new and old clients.

A cool story today. A kid in Futeluefu, that was a effected by the Chaiten volcano a couple of years ago, donated his toys to the kids on Isla Mocha. The toys and other gifts for the kids will be arriving on the island within the hour, along with the doctors.

Vince's brother Charles (somehow we got three Charles on this one operation) showed up last night. He is a boat builder. He will be taking an inventory of the boats on the island for us to see what can be saved and what needs to be replaced.

The doctors, vince, his brother, the doctors family will all be staying on the island tonight. Big thanks the hostal Isla mocha for putting them up. http://www.isla-mocha.cl/

got my Paypal refunded.

You are doing an amazing job and I think you will continue to get more and more support as people can see you are achieving what you set out to do and in record time- these people are so lucky to have people like you who are ready to take on such a HUGE task. Well done.

Well
Western Union is asking for a whole lot more than your name and Temuco. Among OTHER things, your maternal last name, address, phone number etc. etc.
What am I doing wrong?

Try

Charles David Spencer
Avenida España 446
Oficina 307
Temuco, Region IX
Chile

56 45247 378

I get the impression western union asks for different things at different offices around the World.