Anger at US builds at Port-au-Prince airport

[BlueStarLizzard]

i'm not interested in the government getting involved. if privet charity groups want to help, but the us needs to stop helping so many other countries and focus on itself. we're not doing so hot right now...
we keep giving money away. when that disaster hits us after we can't afford to help ourselves anymore, then what happens?

[Sergeant Bob]

Air Traffic Control?

Yep. Probably had some AF Combat Controllers in there directing the sheet metal storm.

[roo_ster]

.                               Yea we got troops to Haiti faster then we did to the superdome but I highly doubt well spend more on their reconstruction then the reconstruction of NOLA. At this point it's just speculation.

No, not NOLA, the upper midwesterners who got flooded out affter NOLA and managed to not sit around whining how Uncle Sugar isn't rescuing/feding/wiping thier bottom fast enough.

[Jamisjockey]

Yep. Probably had some AF Combat Controllers in there directing the sheet metal storm.

Yep.  Awacs is providing overall radar, and they are running Terminal radar ops out of one of the western AF bases, in Arizona IIRC.

[Ron]

Huge aftershock (6.1) in Haiti

What a tragedy

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Yep. Probably had some AF Combat Controllers in there directing the sheet metal storm.

Ok. 

So does that mean I'm being asked to believe that our response in Haiti was good because we had air traffic controllers in place quickly, but our response to Katrina sucked because we didn't have any air traffic controllers?

[AZRedhawk44]

Ok. 

So does that mean I'm being asked to believe that our response in Haiti was good because we had air traffic controllers in place quickly, but our response to Katrina sucked because we didn't have any air traffic controllers?

I don't think we could land planes in NOLA anyways.  ATC has nothing to do with Katrina response, or with Haiti response.

ATC doesn't get potable water or edible food in.  It is resource-inefficient to try to fly in food and water for a refugee population of that size.  Need ground/rail/shipping capabilities.

Our involvement with ATC for Haiti is because we're the only country nearby with the capability to attempt to coordinate replacement of their existing ATC infrastructure with our own, in as seamless a manner as possible.

We didn't need to do that with NOLA.  We just shut down the airport and wrote it off, and used ground transport.

We might be using the airport for some small relief shipments, but the real relief shipments will be coming in droves, via ships, once the ports are cleared of any damage and made functional by the emergency crews airlifted there.  But it takes a couple days to get containers packaged appropriate to the task, get them on a ship, and sail them 1000+ miles.  That's what is happening right now.

Either blaming or lauding FEMA in this effort is ridiculous because it hasn't happened in the US and our country has no obligation to respond to it.  Also, FEMA would simply be locating supplies and shipping contractors based in the US and then alerting the Marine forces in Haiti to their arrival date and location.  This is largely a US military mission from what I've read so far.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

We just shut down the airport and wrote it off, and used ground transport.

no

Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport was closed before the storm but reported no flooding in airplane movement areas or inside of the building itself. By August 30, it was reopened to humanitarian and rescue operations. Commercial cargo flights resumed on September 10, and commercial passenger service resumed on September 13.[28]

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

I grok that air traffic is not particularly suitable for bulk shipments of the sort needed in Haiti.

What I'm trying to make sense of is the notion that our response in Haiti has been better (due to faster arrival of ATC, or whatever other standard you wish to apply) than our response to Katrina.

My observation of Katrina was that the national response was about as good as you could expect for that sort of event.  You're on your own for the first few days, then after that haphazard and disorganized assistance starts to show up.  

This is the same as what's happening in Haiti right now.  It's more than a week after the initial disaster, and people are still dying left and right due to lack of medicine, lack of water, and lawlessness, but aid and personnel are now slowly starting to arrive.  Same pattern as NOLA.  Yet all over the news are reports on how much better the Haiti response is.  This the gold standard for a good humanitarian rescue operation?  This is superior to NOLA?

It doesn't make sense to me.

[Balog]

NOLA was bad cause Bush was in charge, and he hates black people. Obama is in charge for Haiti so it's much better, obviously.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

That's the cynical answer, yes.  But surely there's more to it.  Most people can see through that sort of nonsense, right?

[Balog]

That's the cynical answer, yes.  But surely there's more to it.  Most people can see through that sort of nonsense, right?

Buwhahahahahahaha.... If people could exercise minimal obersvational power Obama wouldn't have been elected to start with.

[Sergeant Bob]

Ok. 

So does that mean I'm being asked to believe that our response in Haiti was good because we had air traffic controllers in place quickly, but our response to Katrina sucked because we didn't have any air traffic controllers?

Umm, no.

[Gewehr98]

If one could engineer a perfect disaster, it would probably mimic the situation in Haiti very closely.

The port was destroyed, so no sealift.  The airport was in shambles, forcing USAF combat controllers to dictate that any airlift coming in must have enough onboard fuel to recover at another airfield after dropping off their cargo. 

Take a look at the architecture there.  The concrete structures were of shoddy construction, pancaking the floors much like Kalifornia's 880 Freeway did during the Loma Prieta earthquake of October 1989. That's a whole lot of composite people/concrete sandwiches, especially considering the population density of the Port-au-Prince area.  Throw in the fact that it was an impoverished nation that could barely provide for itself in the best of times, and you can see what the recipe's good for.  There's not even enough real estate to land supply helicopters from the Navy carrier anchored offshore, so they're throwing rations and water out of the choppers as they do a low hover. 

It was a disaster waiting to happen, whether it was an earthquake or hurricane that triggered it.   

[gunsmith]

It's barry's fault.   

Well Barry and globular warming

[CAnnoneer]

Back to topic, no good deed goes unpunished.

I do not believe that the US gov should give aid to a foreign country even in a situation like that, because it is a misuse of tax dollars. If taxpayers want to help, they can make individual contributions to a gov-controlled charity.

[Torchman]

All I can say is all the big birds (C-17's) that fly over my house everyday are GONE doing airdrops over Haiti (I live about 2 miles from the end of the McCord AF base runway) What is normally all day/night touch and go's has become eerily silent here. I miss those big birds and wish them Godspeed!!

[sanglant]

one small difference?



so of coarse it's all bush's fault

[Perd Hapley]

Of coarse. 

Is that the chocolate mayor? 

[CNYCacher]

I grok that air traffic is not particularly suitable for bulk shipments of the sort needed in Haiti.

What I'm trying to make sense of is the notion that our response in Haiti has been better (due to faster arrival of ATC, or whatever other standard you wish to apply) than our response to Katrina.

My observation of Katrina was that the national response was about as good as you could expect for that sort of event.  You're on your own for the first few days, then after that haphazard and disorganized assistance starts to show up.  

This is the same as what's happening in Haiti right now.  It's more than a week after the initial disaster, and people are still dying left and right due to lack of medicine, lack of water, and lawlessness, but aid and personnel are now slowly starting to arrive.  Same pattern as NOLA.  Yet all over the news are reports on how much better the Haiti response is.  This the gold standard for a good humanitarian rescue operation?  This is superior to NOLA?

It doesn't make sense to me.

Maybe because ATC is more important in Haiti than it is in NO.  300M people in the contiguous USA and every single one of them could get in a car and drive to NO in 2 days.

[dogmush]

If one could engineer a perfect disaster, it would probably mimic the situation in Haiti very closely.

The port was destroyed, so no sealift.  The airport was in shambles, forcing USAF combat controllers to dictate that any airlift coming in must have enough onboard fuel to recover at another airfield after dropping off their cargo. 

Actually the US Army has a pretty extensive mobile seaport capability.  We have a mission called Logistics Over The Shore That involves mobile causeway's, and shallow draft landing craft that can become a (almost) fully fuctional seaport very quickly.  RORO cargo is very fast, but containers also can be done.  It opens up anywhere in the world as a potential deepwater port, and Port-Au-Prince should be seeing it in the near future.  The vessels involved aren't the fastest things on the sea, but they get the job done.

As a profesional logistics geek, I also take a little umbrage at the slowly starting to arrive crud.  I'm not sure you understand the sheer amount of stuff and people we're moving on short notice.  Contrary to popular belief we (the .mil) don't keep huge stocks of stuff on 24 hour notice.  It takes a little time to get equipment, supplies, and vehicles moving, and to make sure that they're supplied properly while they're on mission, much less have anything to give the Haitians.

Cry all you want that we're being slow, but the amount of stuff that's already been delivered or is moving now is an order of magnitude higher then anyone else in the world could hope to accomplish. So pretty much, yeah this is the gold standard.  Anyone else and it'll be there in another 3 weeks or so.

[HankB]

Just a little tidbit . . .

I heard on the radio that there are some Mexican relief teams in Haiti now. One of the members said that when the big quake hit Mexico, they - the people themselves - began helping one another with rescues, distributing aid, etc. The guy said they knew it would be a while until the Mexican government got its act together, so they had to work to help themselves.

He went on to say he was NOT seeing that sort of thing - people getting together to help one another - in Haiti. 

This parallels the experiences of a good friend of mine who went to medical school next door to Haiti in the Dominican Republic. After a little med school, the students began going out into the community to help the locals. Initially, he was sympathetic towards the poor people there. After about a month, he said it was "difficult" to get them to work to better themselves - basic stuff like cleaning up. A month or two later, and I received a letter from him, copiously infused with profanity, about the lazy <insert epithet of your choice> who expect everyone else to do their work for them while they sit on their backsides demanding assistance.

Quite an attitude shift . . .