Or, perhaps (just bear with me here) they did not have oodles of personnel waiting on standby with planes and food in just the right condition to start dropping on people. And even if they had, they couldn’t actually deliver it the “last mile” until they put boots on the ground. Once again, you completely ignore the realities of moving things within Haiti as well as into Haiti.
Oodles of personnel? for what? And except for spotting a good landing zone and securing it for a very short time span what boots are needed on the ground? I don’t understand why you think this is hard. It’s already an established discipline of the military. Nothing needs to be trained for. No equipment needs to be modified. The c-130 is uniquely designed for this. You can see from the video that it has a split track ball mat which is perfect for pallet stacked freight. In this case the pallet is cardboard instead of wood. It’s slicker than snot.
I resent this. For the first couple of days the only hospital working in the capital of Haiti was an Argentinian Army mobile one. The rest were destroyed.
All the world is helping according to their possibilities.
I posted that to show that aircraft/freight was backing up at the airport and that they were contemplating the use of C-130’s for airdrops. It is a fact that aircraft have been delayed and flights canceled. We just canceled a rescue flight from my city and they were people trained for rescuing people in collapsed buildings. Kudo’s to the Argentinian help.
Ok Maguiver. I just wanted to add that our mobile hospital is there at the request of the UN, together with 600 hundred soldiers. Also the bulk of the security is provided by Brazil, also at the request of the UN.
Because of that its false that the UN is of “little help”. The UN was present before the quake
Everything I’ve read from the people who have run this kind of mission before is that simple airdrops don’t work: Able bodied people run to the drops and hoard all the supples for themselves, while the injured, who really need the help, get nothing.
I’m just surprised someone with such experience would be so quick to second-guess other experts based on news reports. Haven’t you been in a situation where a client or “expert” suggested some plans that were clearly infeasible because of some factors they don’t know about?
Hey, if we’re doing the whole national pride thing, let me note that a fully-equipped Israeli Military field hospital was ready for business on Saturday and as of today, is the still only place in the city that’s actually capable of performing complex operations, instead of just providing first aid.
It’s a little difficult to drop a bulldozer out of a C-130 and very few Seabees moonlight as paratroopers. In this situation you’d be far more successful with an amphibious solution. In my post above I talked about Seabees.
There are Seabees there now. NMCB 7 and divers from Underwater Construction Team 1 are there. NavyTimes. So according to this link, we’ve got:
[ul][li]USS Bataan (LHD-5), USS Fort McHenry, USS Carter Hall, along with Beach Group TWO and the 22nd MEU. [/li][li]USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70), and Carrier Air Wing 17[/li][li]USS Normandy, cruiser[/li][li]USS Underwood, frigate[/li][li]USNS Comfort, hospital ship[/li][li]NMCB 7 and UCT 1[/ul][/li]As of Friday, not counting the initial Guantanamo Bay/Coast Guard efforts and whatever the other branches are bringing.
This is incorrect. There is also a Russian field hospital that has been performing operations since at least Saturday (they arrived earlier but had problems finding a secure spot to set up).
I wouldn’t be surprised if there were other examples too, but the Israeli hospital isn’t the only one.
If we drop large amounts of supplies at a time there is more chance it will reach people. Regardless of how it arrives the injured aren’t going to be standing in line or will be prey to gangs or profiteers. Keep in mind this is only done in the first days before ground movement can be established.
I don’t know which group was interviewed but they said they were averaging 60 to 70 amputations per day. One doctor just starting crying. They were talking about 40 hr shifts.
It wasn’t a quick second-guess. I started looking at it the day of the earthquake with a review of the weather, airport availability, and flight times. An open letter to the President (cited same video I posted)
Today the Air Force air dropped food and water “There are so many relief agencies funneling through the airport that it has kind of created a bottleneck,” U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Leon Strickland told CNN en route to the drop point. “We’re going to put things directly out of the air onto the ground and open up another distribution point north of the [Port-au-Prince] airfield.”
Air drop yesterday! Watching Anderson Cooper on CNN, I was glad to hear him go on a rant (several times) about how long everything is taking. (Well, damn, I guess I wasn’t the only one who thought things could be done faster, I sez to myself.)
Still haven’t heard how and by whom decisions are being made about priorities.
I’m watching a piece on the Israeli Unit right now. They came completely self contained. The patients are photographed and all their files digitized to the point they can be wired to any other unit. Very impressive.
It was so nice to see some of the miracle rescues. They’re still pulling people out alive 7 days later. One guy was trying find his wife and they were sawing re-bar with hack saws. A relief team came in and cut their way to her.