City of Charleston, SC Mayor Joseph P. Riley, Jr. held a press conference at Water Missions International today to urge Lowcountry residents and businesses to rally together to help the people of Haiti. "How wonderful it would be for all of us in Charleston to know that through our contributions and the work of wonderful people here, we are directly engaged in saving lives in this stricken country,” the Mayor explained.

As the Mayor addressed the public, Water Missions International volunteers continued their work assembling water purification systems for Haiti. The first 10 water systems are scheduled for deployment this afternoon.

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WMI volunteers have assembled 10 water treatment systems for immediate deployment to Haiti.

The 10 water systems will be air freighted this afternoon to Denver, then arrive in Port au Prince, Haiti on Saturday, January 16. The air transportation for the systems is courtesy of FedEx. Installation of those systems will begin as soon as possible after their arrival.

Each water system is capable of treating 10 gallons of water per minute, which is enough to provide for the daily drinking water needs of at least 5,000 people in a disaster situation.

Volunteers will continue to assemble additional water treatment systems for later deployment to Haiti. WMI expects that this relief effort will be extensive and many more water systems will be needed.

Water Missions International has confirmed that two staff members who were stationed in Haiti when the quake struck are safe and unharmed, and the organization has reason to believe the others are safe as well.

Two staff members are already on the ground in Port-au-Prince. These two staff members are experienced in disaster response situations as they ran WMI’s relief efforts in Sri Lanka at the time of the Southeast Asian Tsunami of 2004.

Charleston-based staff is planning to travel to Haiti to assist with disaster relief efforts within the next 48 hours.

WMI currently has a full-time country program in Haiti. Most recently, 22 water systems were deployed to Haiti and installed after the repeat tropical storms in summer and fall of 2008.