The Betty Black Blog

Since Wednesday morning we have all been waiting for help to reach ravaged Haiti. Unfortunately, we live in a world that has become used to writing a letter then pressing “send” and our letter to our Aunt in China arrives. We sit at our computers and do in an hour what once took a week. We text and email information across the world. Our hearts cry out for our neighbours and we want to help them NOW. Where is the help, where is the water, the medical care, the search and rescue teams? Why are supplies sitting at the airport?

Here’s the thing. Within six hours most of the world knew what had happened. We knew sooner for that earthquake was felt here as a 5.3! Within the hour we heard the full news. The next morning JDF Coast Guard vessels set out. ODPEM went into high gear. Food for the Poor started loading containers. Now stop and think. There are roughly 195 countries in the world. Let’s presume half of them reacted as we did. That is almost 100 independent, sovereign nations setting out for Haiti plus hundreds of relief organisations. Let’s presume they all tried to make contact. No one could get through to the Haitian government, the United Nations Office or their own missions or offices there. They would all have individually realised the potential and set off anyway. Three Food for the Poor offices most likely spoke to each other and a dozen Red Cross missions probably did the same. But the Salvation Army in Jamaica would not have contacted the Cuban Government or the US Air Force. They all likely presumed that, once they arrived in Haiti the government or the UN forces would be ready to organise everyone. One can imagine how stunned they were when they approached Port-au-Prince and the reality became apparent. It was ten times worse than anyone could have imagined. The Presidential Palace and Parliamentary buildings were destroyed, the UN Headquarters was a pile of rubble, the Cathedral was gone. There was neither state or church nor international body to organise them. Within minutes they would have discovered that the airport was cut off and the port destroyed. They would most likely have discussed the situation among themselves and each would have radioed their headquarters for further instructions. If the head of ODPEM or a US Army general had been on the ground they might automatically have taken charge but that was not the case.

We need to remember that there was no communications between Haiti and the rest of the world. Someone in Haiti Tweeting their friend in the US is not an official communication. The air traffic control system was down so, once the airport was full, there was no way of stopping other planes from coming in. We don’t realise that Port-au-Prince International Airport has only one runway, not only one functioning but only one in existence. We think in our own terms, it would take dozens of planes to clog one of our airports (or hundreds to clog Miami or Toronto) so we presume there were dozens there. Four or five would be enough in a one runway airport. With no air traffic control, our planes which took off, including three private charters, would have had no way of knowing they could not land until they were close enough to actually see the situation; the same would apply for the hundreds coming from other countries. Ships already there would have radioed other ships to report the situation with the port but the ships still approaching would hardly have turned round and gone home. Within hours, but not faster than the speed of CNN, they would have realised how totally cut off they were from everything and that both the Government and the UN Post were destroyed, in fact at this point 300 UN personnel are still missing.  Some would have set off on foot to see the situation, some would have set up close to the airport. Food for the Poor landed ten containers of supplies at Cap Haitien in the north on Thursday and is working there.

Living in an instant world we often forget that things take time. Food for the Poor, ODPEM and other relief agencies are always ready to roll. Search and rescue and medical teams take longer. It takes at least a day or two to gather people from their regular jobs and send them on the way. Doctors cannot walk out on their regular patients to jump on a plane as much as they might want to.

Someone on Facebook suggested that heavy equipment should have been the first in to clear the way for the relief supplies and medical teams. Under no circumstances would this have worked. There had been a major earthquake, there were still dozens of aftershocks. Just the movement of bulldozers would have brought down some of the damaged buildings, not to mention the possibility of crushing people trapped under the rubble in the streets. This is why search and rescue teams take hours to move a few feet, the greatest danger being to cause more damage. Even when the big cargo helicopters came in they couldn’t work as, when they tried to land, they disturbed half fallen buildings. Major clearing cannot be done until the status changes from search and rescue to search and recover which, as heart wrenching as it might sound, is literally only hours away. Only then can roads be cleared and relief supplies start to roll out at the pace we would all like to see. At least there are tons of supplies already there and hundreds of tons more on the way.

Similarly, the hospital ship, USNS Comfort does not sit in the US Navy Yard ready to roll, the cost would be mind-boggling. The doctors, nurses, etc. who staff it all have regular hospital jobs and have to organise things so that the sick and injured at home will be taken care of. Three days to have it ready to leave out is unbelievably fast in real time. It’s also a ship, not a supersonic jet, so it takes time to get to Haiti. Hospital ships coming from Europe have even further to travel.

Port-au-Prince at this point is a huge pile of rubble. Even by constantly watching TV images it takes a vivid imagination to understand what the reality must be. There are more people in Haiti’s capital than in all of Jamaica. Houses were densely packed, miles and miles of slums, therefore the rubble must cover everywhere. At this point the only way to get out aid is by small helicopters which don’t carry much but which also don’t have the potential to do further damage.

Gleaner Image

If you’ve ever done volunteer work or helped at a school barbeque you will have an idea of how long it takes to serve a dozen people. To help the three million in Port-au-Prince and the others throughout the country within forty-eight hours it would take 20,000 people with unlimited resources working full time without sleep. Unfortunately, though we weep to see it, it takes time to help nine million people. Precious time which, five days after the earthquake, has already run out.