BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. – Joe Hurston has been delivering clean water to disaster victims for the last decade with his water purifier known as the Air Mobile Rescuer. The device can take water from a pond, lake and even a gutter, and make it drinkable.
"It first goes through the ceramic filter, which reduces the particles to less than a micron," said Hurston. "Then, it goes through the ozone and UV. That's the part that kills the bacteria and the viruses."
Hurston's company, Air Mobile Ministries, have deployed over 800 purifiers to 44 countries, and his latest trip -- 8 days on the typhoon-ravaged islands of the Philippines.
"When you have a storm of that magnitude, you don't just snap a finger and say you're water's back on," Hurston said.
That's why he and his team took 15 water purifiers to the Filipino victims. The storm has left over 3 million people homeless and the death toll is in the thousands, and that number is expected to rise.
Hurston says the destruction he saw was worse than he could have imagined.
"Power plants destroyed, purification plants destroyed.," Hurston said. "The sewerage that gets into everything, as well. It's very bad and it's going to be bad for a long time."
Hurston's team went to the worst-hit area of Tacloban, or ground zero as he calls it. He says some villages had no food, water or even light, and when they arrived with clean drinking water, he says the response was unforgettable.
"All they could say is thank you in tears -- knowing that this was the lifeline for their whole village," Hurston said.
Hurston and his team plan on going back to the Philippines with 15 more purifiers within the next couple of weeks.