One more thing. If some of us look around and feel that their local situation resembles Haiti to an uncomfortable degree, get to work. If your local leaders aren't up to snuff, work actively to replace them with those who are better. See to it that better standards are instituted, and that public service agencies are improved.

This does happen. When I was in college (ancient history lesson here) three Boy Scouts went missing while attempting a summit climb in a local mountain range. The resulting search was wildly mismanaged. In the next election, the incumbent sheriff was bounced, his successor worked to improve SAR, and things got better - not immediately, but it did improve. A huge factor was the involvement of concerned citizens, who worked in preference to complaining. A lot of good things happened because of their work.

Martin -- Thanks for that, we have had our own large scale disasters and while there will always be finger pointing to some degree, we as a nation do come together. We generally take the lessons learned and apply them; that's one of the reasons we have building codes.

Speaking of building codes, I need a serious pry/wrecking bar too. I have smaller ones designed to assist in construction, but none would be particularly useful in working a collapsed home -- leverage is a good thing.

You can usually find a bar about six feet long, pointed at one end, chisel at the other. They give better leverage than he larger crowbars.

I can vouch for the long pry bars at Ace Hardware - although they seem a smidgen lighter than the ones used by the local FD for CERT training, they worked well in real weight tests during a refresher training session. Someone said something about give me a lever and I'll move the world, that's what you wish for in a S&R lift situation. And they were only $28, I have bought 3, one for my brother who lives a couple blocks away, another for a brother organizing a CERT team 5 miles away. (usual disclaimer, not paid or employed by the long pry bar people or Ace Hardware, just a happy customer / consumer)

I also decided to sacrifice a long-neglected 4x4 and some scrap 2x4s, and chopped them into short lengths, and filled an empty garbage can with them. I'm sure there will be cribbing material after a bad shake, but I figure it isn't so safe to pull cribbing material from fallen structures, and it would be better to have it ready and semi-portable (by 2 rescuers). Two pair of cheap gloves and goggles go on top, I am always redudant with those...

Another lesson: idealistic do-gooders do more bad than good..

-Blast

I heard about those people on the radio last night.

I thought they were keeping non-essential planes out of the area? Has that changed, and they've got so much room and facilities that they're letting everyone and anyone in?

Sue

Interesting article. I wonder how many more organized groups have similar issues on a different scale. I'm pretty sure I recall stories about an airplane being turned away with 12 tons of medical supplies. Sounds like a lot but ya gotta wonder what types of supplies they were and the relative priority of about a 737's payload capacity of medical supplies was compared to what was carried in on the planes that did land.

Everyone wants to help, and everyone is sure their contribution will make a difference. Someone has to manage priorities and and it is guaranteed to be a thankless job.

- Eric

Interesting article, Blast. Thanks.


“If you buy a can of peas and it costs 59 cents, it’ll cost about $80 to get it where it needs to go,” Rothe-Smith said.

Mathematics of donation favor cash

Many agencies try to motivate donors with the mathematics of the situation. Jeff Nene, a spokesman for Convoy of Hope, a Springfield, Mo., agency that feeds 11,000 children a day in Haiti, urges cash donations that allow his group to buy in bulk from large suppliers and retailers.

“When people give $1, it translates into $7 in the field,” he said. “If they spend $5 for bottled water, that’s nice and it makes them feel good, but probably it costs us more than $5 to send it. If they give us $5, we can get $35 worth of water.”

That’s a sentiment echoed by virtually every aid agency.

“I would really say at this point, honestly, right now, money is the best thing to give,” Rothe-Smith said.

Q: How do you fly to Haiti?
A: First, you buy a ticket... then with any luck, your plane won't be diverted back again above the Haitian airport...

My guess is that they bought tickets the ordinary way at a commercial air plane... whose cargo is probably stuffed with emergency supplies...

At the Haitian airport I guess everything is pretty chaotic and that those at the airport have better things to do than screen out potential naive non-professionals that the plane brought in.

It is nothing new that idealistic non-professionals arrive at catastrophe sites, but the situation is accentuated by the absolute screaming lack of food, water and (I'm guessing) bedding. It is true that a pair of willing hands can always be put to some use, but that is only beneficial if the overloaded professional isn't distracted by the need to supervise or babysit the unskilled. I'm also guessing that Haiti has an ample supply of unskilled hands already...


It is hard to criticize efforts of charity given with a pure heart, but sometimes I do wonder about the limits of human stupidity. Of course, stupidity coupled with the option to get rid of surplus stuff is a powerful combination... I've heard plenty of those stories about relief shipment with bowler hats and peculiar ladies underwear before.

Landing priorities are set by the Haitians, the UN, and the US, in that order. If someone convinces the Haitains or UN to approve a landing, they land. Otherwise the US turns away flights who haven't arranged ahead of time. This is what apparently what got the French medical flight in trouble - they didn't give notice ahead of time that they were coming (they probably didn't know who to call and took off anyway).

The "Haitain Government" is a headless corpse right now - I would not be surprised if it amounts to some Joe who worked at the airport previously. That may be the highest-ranking you can find at the moment. UN is not much better in the best of times, and they often have too many people "in charge".

Based on flight rates the runaway & takeoffs/landings don't seem to be the limiting factor right now - parking areas are. Also, no loading / unloading equipment survived. Flights even had to bring their own ladders for passengers to disembark at first! Any flight without ladders for passengers or winches to lower cargo gets turned back. Otherwise they just sit in the parking area taking up space, preventing another flight from coming in. And if there's no one on the ground to receive & move the cargo then whatever the plane lowers to the ground just sits there in the middle of the tarmac, as useful as a dog dropping on a sidewalk.

The final report is probably going to reach the obvious conclusion that absolute #1 priority should go to a Seabee battalion, even ahead of medical flights. A bulldozer may displace a lot of tetanus shots on day 2, but by day 5 or 6 the bulldozer probably pays for itself many times over. One of the harbor piers is apparently partly open now: here's another chance for a Seabee team to be a huge difference-maker.

And as usual I expect that next time the report will be ignored, and priority will go to celebrity sight-seeing and tetanus shots, etc, with infrastructure and construction flights only done at night when nobody is looking.