Escape from Port-au-Prince: Patrick Jean Louis was among the Americans who were evacuated from Haiti aboard a U.S. military cargo plane on Saturday.On Tuesday January 12, Patrick Jean-Louis arrived in Haiti for the first time in seven years. Besides visiting family, Jean-Louis — who works at Roxbury Community College —had heard that Haiti’s economic situation “was moving in the right direction, so [he] went to see that.” On the afternoon of his arrival, the 7.0 earthquake struck the two-floor building in Belleville where he, his uncle, and cousin were visiting. Jean-Louis asked his uncle, “What is that? It felt as though it was coming towards us.” His uncle replied that it was an earthquake. Jean-Louis ran down from the second floor and out the door. “It wasn’t easy getting out the house – the stairs were shaking.” There were smaller, nearby homes that collapsed but Jean Louis reports that the larger buildings in the area, including the one he’d quickly left, were intact. Read more

The Massachusetts Haitian American Earthquake Task Force is teaming up with local artists, gospel choirs, and special guests from across the nation to launch a major fundraising effort this Sunday, Jan. Read more

The Center for Future Civic Media at MIT has reached out the BHR and our staff and readers for help with a new database intended to help get emergency responders to Haiti's earthquake victims. Read more

(2:20 p.m.)- Our newsroom just received a call from Renel Louis Jean, 22, who is in Au Cayes and is desperately looking for help. He has left Port-au-Prince, where he was when the earthquake hit, with a group of survivors. Read more

Wyclef Jean is speaking out against public reports that have raised questions about the track record of his charity Yele Haiti, which has raised over $1 million through a text message campaign since Tuesday's earthquake. Read more

Riche Zamor, a Boston man who serves as president of the University of Fondwa tells the Reporter today that the school's facilities have been completely destroyed. Read more

Boston transplant Rich Innocent relays a tale of survival, teamwork among the people of Delmas Richardson Innocent: Proud Bostonian, Haitian now searching for survivors in DelmasFor the third consecutive night, Richardson Innocent will rest his head tonight underneath a tree in Delmas, a neighborhood of Port-au-Prince. There’s a machete and a chisel close by his side. Clustered around him is his cousin, Norton, and a frightened family he has known for only a few weeks. All over the neighborhood, a rumor has spread that another aftershock is coming tonight at midnight. No one will sleep indoors for fear of being entombed in rubble like so many others all around them if another one hits. Innocent, 36, isn’t sure what to think any more. A longtime Boston resident who just moved back to his native Haiti last month, he’s not the superstitious type. But, after the events of the last 60 hours, he’s not taking any chances. He and a group of nine others will sleep under the tree tonight, far enough away from a nearby house, one of the few still standing in Delmas 35. In the morning, Richardson and his cousin will rise early and hit the streets of this community on the outskirts of Haiti’s destroyed capitol city. They will spend their daylight hours searching for survivors and for supplies to help feed their friends and neighbors. Every able-bodied person in the neighborhood is doing their part. Without any discernable help from the outside world — there are no rescue teams, no soldiers, no heavy equipment in Delmas yet— Haitians are helping Haitians. Read more

Congressman Stephen F. Lynch along with Brockton Mayor Linda Balzotti will be hosting a community meeting and information session on rescue and relief operations underway following the earthquake in Haiti. Representatives from the United States Coast Guard, the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services and other federal agencies will be available to give updates on the current situation and offer information to those who have been impacted by the earthquake and have family or loved ones living or travelling in Haiti. WHEN: Sunday, January 17, 2010 Read more

The White House has released a transcript of President Obama's latest remarks on the situation in Haiti, made today in the White House just after 1 p.m. Read more