Peru Earthquake: Jose and Katia need our help

tonski · Since 11 Jun 2005 332 Posts NW Portland Obsessed

Hi all, for those of you who are blessed to have met Jose and Katia (www.perufly.com) during the last several summers here in the NW either kiting or paragliding, know they are as kind and generous as they come.

Thankfully, they are okay physically after the awful earthquake, but have lost everything and the village needs our help. See below for more details from Katia:

Dear Friends:

Thanks for your words and concern about us, and Paracas. Many of you may have visit us here or know our beautiful place. Some of you only know about it throught the love we transmit for it. Anyway, I wanted to share with you..

Things are pretty bad. Thank God all the people at Paracas were safe, (only one injured and one dead), but all of them are sleeping on the streets, homeless and with no food. There's no help reaching Paracas, so the resindetns are moving and making donations and collection of moeny, food, water and all kind of supplies. Jose is there since Thursday, traying ot safe our stuff that was left. The water came into our house up to the waist, the warehouse , where we kept our gear and working devices was under water. All the houses are destroyed (because the ocean came all the way in 300 feet up to 30 inches high), and what was left was stolen. Now Jose is organizing the help with a few more people that could get there.

There is lack of everything and no institutional help had arrived yet, so Jose has cleaned our office at the town to use it as a help center, from where he had organized our people to give away the help we are getting from friends. There are 6 groups of 150 people to feed. There are babies and kids crying on the streets of hunger and cold. Wea re trying to do all what's possible to help.

Jose slept last night at the car on the high part of the dessert, since there was a replica (there has been 480 replicas-earthquake) and seemed to be pretty bad, they where afraid the ocean will come back so everyone run away and Jose didn't want to stay alone, since he didn;t evewn had a gun. The police car was taken away by the ocean so there is no patrol and Jose is also driving around once in a while with them.
Our friends are leaving all the time taking food and help. They leave taking food, water, supplies that we could gather. . Yesterday was a terrible and stressful day, and I end up in bed with contractions for all the tension and running. Now I'm flat, but coordinating all kinds of help from here in Lima

If you would like to help, please do so. We have a bank account to get money for supplies and rebuilding. People are sleeping on the streets and these people need all kind of help. We are using the bank account from the association of residents, to garantee that the help we receive will be manage the best and more efficient way.

The bank account is:

USA - Washington Mutual
Bank Name: Washington Mutual Bank
Bank Address: 400 east main st. Stockton Ca. 95290
Branch: West Linn Office in Oregon
Account holder: Jose Carlos Rosas - Zarich
Account: 0092-0000030799-0
Swift code: WMSBUS66
Routing: 325070760
Country: USA
USA - Paypal
Send money to: jose@perufly.com

All aid will be received with gratitude by low income residents. We will post all donors´ names in the Paracas Municipality.

Help us restore the beauty of Paracas. We all hope you can help the community. They will know also foreign people help them. If possible pass this to your friends.

Here are some pictures of how's Paracas looking now.. If you visited the rock formation The Cathedral, you were lucky. Now it's gone... it fell down. So imagine how hard was all this. Katia

Edit: added pictures from Katia

Mark · Mon Aug 20, 07 9:39 am

Tonia
Thanks for posting. I will help out.
Mark

Kodiak · Since 01 Aug 2005 1114 Posts Slidey

This is really horrible. Janet and I will help out. Crying or Very sad

boarderchick · Since 10 Aug 2007 196 Posts Wherever there's wind:-) Stoked

Hello all,

If there are any Intel blue badge employees/retirees out there, please know that Intel is now matching all donations dollar for dollar to the peru relief fund up to 10K per person. I was getting ready to go talk with the Intel Foundation regarding donation matching for Peru, but just noticed the article on our Intranet stating they just started it.

All donations can be made through the American Red Cross or any US based-501c(3) relief organization. I realize this doesn't go directly to Katia and Jose, but if you want to split between them and another organization to which Intel would match that would be awesome. Try to give as much as you can. I've volunteered to be a collection person, pm me if you'd like.

Here is what has been going on with the Red Cross: I was going to give them a call to see where (city) all the dollars are going, though it noted on their site the hardest hit spots are Pisco and Ica.

Red Cross and Red Crescent action
The American Red Cross is deploying Corey Michaud, a delegate in Ecuador, to Peru to assist with the relief operation. Michaud will work closely with the Peruvian Red Cross to conduct assessments and distribute relief items. His deployment is in addition to a contribution of 1,500 hygiene kits and 1,000 tarps, which arrived in Peru today.

The Peruvian Red Cross (PRC) has deployed 60 volunteers to the field. PRC response activities include ongoing needs assessments, search and rescue, distribution of relief items, and medical care. Four vehicles are available to be dispatched, and four ambulances are in Pisco in support of medical activities.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has allocated an initial $205,000 from its Disaster Relief Emergency Fund (DREF) to immediately start relief operations. The Federation's Pan American Disaster Response Unit (PADRU) has deployed two disaster management delegates, a disaster management officer, two regional logisticians, a regional telecommunications specialist, a regional relief delegate, and a communications officer. A logistics coordinator and the head of PADRU will be arriving in-county today.

Ten national Red Cross societies are also in-country assisting the PRC response activities. Two planes containing pre-positioned relief items were sent from Panama to Peru.

Sorry for the length of the post.

Boarderchick

pkh · Since 27 Feb 2005 6549 Posts Couve / Hood Honored Founder

Terrible event for Peru.... Hope Jose and Katia pull through okay, they are great people.