Bringing the Military's Might to Aid Haiti

(CBS)  Over the past few days we've seen American ships and aircraft and military personnel converging upon the Haiti earthquake zone. They're on a life-and-death mission . . . and they DO have a plan. Here's national security correspondent David Martin:

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Water, water everywhere, and yesterday it finally got to people who need it.

Paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne landed on a hill where survivors had gathered. So often these days, the face of America is that of a soldier - in this case, Captain Jonathan Hartsock:

"I brought my paratroopers in to help the people here of Haiti recover from this earthquake. I'm just trying to establish ourselves here. I'm getting ourselves established, all of our personnel in, all of our equipment in - medical personnel, medical equipment - so we can begin to help these people recover from the earthquake."

The log jam at the airport has put the 82nd behind schedule. An 800-man battalion was supposed to be on the ground Friday but by yesterday there were only 240.

The main port is a disaster area, and until a second one can be opened up at Cap-Haitien on the north shore, the American military is trying to move into Haiti through that single-runway airport.

The vice president likened it to shoving a bowling ball through a straw.

"We were able yesterday to get 17 airframes in," Joe Biden said. "We have the capacity to send in 700 airframes."

Complete Coverage: Devastation in Haiti

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who made a first-hand inspection yesterday, said one of the first questions she asked the military was why not parachute troops and supplies in. She got the same answer reporters got when they asked General Douglas Fraser, the commander of the operation:

"Air drop is dangerous for people on the ground because when people see things falling they will run to where that is, and so it can actually cause more problems than it causes help."

Which is why, General Fraser said, "We started moving ships almost immediately after we found out that there was a catastrophe in Haiti."

The first big deck to arrive was the carrier Vinson with 19 helicopters on board. It got there Friday but only because it happened to be at sea off the East Coast when the quake hit. Unlike a hurricane, said Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen, you can't see an earthquake coming.

"This was a crisis that was a bolt out of the blue if you will, and in that regard the response time, I think, for having no idea this was going to occur, this has been really remarkable."

(AP/Kristopher Wilson, U.S. Navy)

Ships that were in port had to load supplies before they could get underway. It will be tomorrow before these amphibious ships with 14 helicopters and 2,200 Marines reach Haiti. The hospital ship Comfort is finally underway from Baltimore, but its multiple operating rooms and hundreds of hospital beds are still five days away from Haiti.

(Left: Marines assigned to the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit bound for Haiti embark aboard the multi-purpose amphibious assault ship USS Bataan in Morehead City, N.C., Jan. 15, 2010.)

"There are just some certain facts of life that affect how quickly you can do some of these things," said Defense Secretary Robert Gates. "The collapse of the infrastructure in Haiti, the small size of the airport, the time it takes a ship to get from point A to point B, those are all just facts of life."

There is another fact of life Gates didn't mention. The U.S. is fighting two wars.

Most of the 82nd Airborne is either in Iraq or Afghanistan. And now the U.S. military is taking on a major new operation which is still growing in size and which the vice president says has no end in sight.

"We're in for the long haul," said Biden. "The Haitian people are our friends. They're our partners. They're our neighbors. We're not going to abandon them in their time of need, and their time of need is going to extend well beyond the ensuing months. It's going to extend for the next several years."

Another big deck amphib is likely to head toward Haiti tomorrow. Each morning for at least the next week, when a Haitian survivor looks out to sea, there will be more American ships on the horizon.

"The most important thing for people in need to know is that help is coming," said Biden.

But what that survivor really needs to know is, when will it get to me?

[Demoserver]

This is just another occasion to say GOD BLESS OUR MILITARY PERSONNEL! They are always there when there
is a need and others fail to show. Those wonderful young men and women represent the best in our
country, if the people of Haiti get any help delivered to them it will arrive through them. My hat is off
to all who serve.

[sportavia8]

Possible short term solution to sanitation:

During the Kosovo crisis in the late nineties, Livermore Lab scientists were asked what could be done to solve the sanitation problem in the sprawling refugee camps that were erected with tents on bare ground.

Livermore staff recommended that each tent family be provided with a
standard 5-gallon plastic bucket with lid to be used as a toilet. These buckets are available all over the world for less than $2.00 each. These buckets stack within each other for easy delivery. One person can easily carry ten or more of them.

The procedure was to tell each family that they had to bring their waste bucket to a disposal area (a pit in the ground). They had to empty and clean the bucket before they could receive more food for the day.

This procedure was also published in the respected journal Science, Plastic Buckets for Refugee Sanitation, (Science, v 284, p409, 16 April 1999.)

Idea from: http://www.kgoradio.com/Article.aspid=1662660&nId=0&spid=33179

Please pass this on perhaps not nearly as good as a lot of Port-A-Johns but something that might be able to be implemented quickly and help prevent disease.

[CharlesAtkinson]

1. With respect to Haiti, President Obama gave "direct guidance from the president to do whatever it takes to get supplies and services in as fast as you possibly can."

2. Then Ambassador Hillary Clinton:
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who made a first-hand inspection yesterday, said one of the first questions she asked the military was why not parachute troops and supplies in.

3. The General Douglas Fraser: She got the same answer reporters got when they asked General Douglas Fraser, the commander of the operation:

"Air drop is dangerous for people on the ground because when people see things falling they will run to where that is, and so it can actually cause more problems than it causes help."

Which is why, General Fraser said, "We started moving ships almost immediately after we found out that there was a catastrophe in Haiti."

4. Many of us in this CBSnews story, suggested parachuting in water, food and medicine. Read the Comments from Saturday, January 15th around noon.

5. On Twitter, the local Haitians requested the same: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=parachutes+haiti+water

6. Now the 82nd Airborne, Monday afternoon, January 18th, made its first drop and it was completely successful and nobody got hurt. See:

http://***********/ycl8bl4

7. I would like to contribute to a massive expansion of this program and avoid the bureaucracy of trickle down donations. Just tell me where!
direct guidance from the president to do whatever it takes to get supplies and services in as fast as you possibly can.

[pmw17]

I was hoping you would have a link to Presidents Clinton and Bush's Haiti relief fund....

[pcevet4]

It is true that MRE's can be freedropped, and pallets of water can be placed fairly precisely. But an MRE from 1500 feet is like getting hit upside the head with a softball. If dropping food and water causes stampedes and more violence, then the military gets slammed for that. Finding a pre-secured drop zone in that rugged terrain and close settlement is probably impossible. The military is doing the best they can.

[ALBrainTrust10]

The problem is 3 million people needing 3 million MREs/day + water.

The helicopters can't do it alone.

I hope they send in engineers to fix the existing water system and at least get a treatment facility on-line if able.

[sportavia8]

I do understand that each situation is different and the military and aide people are doing remarkable work given all the circumstances.

I saw today the helicopters dropping off cases of MRE?s. The reports say that the military know this is not the best way but at least the people are getting some food.

Could they not open the boxes and drop the MRE?s individually? Would this cause more ciaos? Could it potentially damage the helicopters? OR could this be a better option to feed more people and prevent the strong from getting all the food?????

Here is an observation from nature:

If you throw a whole piece of bread to a seagull, the first one there will take it but the biggest strongest seagull will take it away. If you throw out bread crumbs to the seagulls each one will get something.

[truthtoday]

American promises $100 million to Haiti. What did Haiti do with the $3 billion?

Since 1993 Americans have given Haiti over $3 billion dollars in aid. Now we're promising another $100 million dollars. That kind of money should have built each person a house, hundreds of schools, and hospitals, several new power plants, new water plants, and new sewer plants. The averaged Haitians earns less than $1,000 per year. If $3 billion dollars over the last 20 years isn't enough then something is terrible wrong with their government. The money is not getting to the people. The corrupt politicians and the wealthy ruling class are steeling it.

[sallychicago]

Good points. And also, China, which is richer than we are, only donated $1Mil. How come we are offering more?

[spacengin]

The French partially created the poverty in Haiti by the huge debt that they imposed. The least that they should do now is dedicate at least $150M to rebuilding Haiti's infrastructure. Creating business ties is the second thing to do to build economic wealth and redeem their Karma.

[nowhiningallowed]

Haiti and only Haiti is at fault with it's poverty and inability to be productive. Let's stop blaming everybody else except those responsible for Haiti's failures. They wanted their freedom from French governance and agreed to the debt as part of their independence. They obviously didn't think things through very well and every other industrialize nation, especially the U.S. has been helping them out with absolutely no return on the three billion reportedly given to Haiti over the years by U.S. taxpayers. They're still poor, with high rates of illiteracy and haven't any commerce to speak of. They've been existing on fumes - the fumes of the U.S. taxpayers.

[sjc_1]

"..no return on the three billion reportedly given to Haiti over the years by U.S. taxpayers.."

You demand to make a profit on the poor? Sounds like a wrong winger.

[sportavia8]

When asked by a new reporter yesterday about Parachuting food and water in to the Haitians Hillary Clinton repeated what had heard from other reports that it would be too dangerous.

I then remembered a story from previous military aide missions and went hunting for the stories with google. Last night Bay Area Radio Talk show host also remembered and told the stories of his research into airdropping Granola bars and MRE.

How do you airdrop desperately needed food to refugees without the payload falling onto and crushing the recipients? Just throw them out of the Aircraft so they can float down individually ? Called ?Fluttering? when first used by the military in Bosnia.

No need for any distribution personal on the ground either! The food gets directly into the hands of those who will eat it. No individual can pick up more than a few rations so no hoarding.

News stories of the original drops
http://www.kgoradio.com/Article.asp?id=1662660&nId=0&spid=33179

Story from Afghanistan
http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=44648
?Since the food drops began Oct. 7, teams of two C-17s flying out of Ramstein during four straight night runs have airdropped more than 140,000 individual daily meals to Afghan refugees, Self said. "That is approximately 17,000 meals per aircraft" per run, Self said, adding that the crews have successfully dropped about 35,000 rations each day. The planes, he noted, are rotated for each mission. ?

It is a relatively short flight from Florida to Haiti. DON?T land at the busy Haiti airport, unload and wait to deliver the food - simply fly over and drop the food and let it FLUTTER down individually. Fast and Efficient! The food gets directly into the hands of those who will eat it. No one can pick up more than a few. Children can pick these up. Drop the high nutrition cookies, drop granola bars, drop MRE!

Water can also be safely dropped. You can drop water bottles in the water (lots of ocean around). The bottles will not break, they float to the surface and can be gathered by the locals. (Half full bottles work better) Small 4 oz. juice/water foil packets can also be dropped safely with the food.

Although in Port-au-Prince the airspace is restricted in the countryside any aide group with a small airplane could do these drops.

More stories and pictures:

Story from Bosnia
http://www.qmfound.com/air_bosnia.htm

Tri-wall Aerial Delivery System Images
http://www.af.mil/photos/media_search.asp?q=jeremy&page=29
Probably don't even need the special boxes for this operation! - Just drop the MRE or Granola bars.
KEEP IT SIMPLE

The idea is not new. The ?Candy Bar Bomber? in the Berlin Airlift did it. He used handkerchief parachutes but these mainly made the candy bars more visible in the drop.
http://www.eaa.org/news/2009/candy_bomber.pdf

No one needs instuction on how to eat a granola bar or candy bar.

[CharlesAtkinson]

Could Not Agree More:
by CharlesAtkinson January 17, 2010 12:10 PM EST
How many cargo planes with skids of water, food, medicine have been dropped with parachutes on the people of Haiti? How has it worked? What were problems and successes? Did the people of Haiti appreciate this?

Or is this something that nobody thought of or rejected before trying it or felt that sending money was the only solution?

I would like this to be asked of President Obama, Former Presidents Bush and Clinton, and have the issue raised in the media.

Thoughts from Cambridge, Massachusetts on Sunday, the 17th, praying for a parachute to rescue the Haitian people!!!!!

[retm-w]

And if you watch the news, with the drops they are doing by helicopter, people are taking more then their fair share. I just watched one last night, people were grabbing up as much as they could carry and some people were getting nothing. Your're going to flutter drop rations on top of collapsed buidings so people have to climb through the rubble to get a granola bar or MRE. Every situation is different, those other drops you are talking about were different situations and the terrain was different. I'm sure the people in charge know what they are doing.

[wdrussell1]

Sure this is a great thing for the military to be doing.
The one thing we can't do is to let Blackwater into that country. One massacre by some methedout killers will undo all the goodwill the rest of us are trying to achieve.

[mal2cats]

An unknown aid agency tried dropping about 2 dozen boxes of MREs Saturday just above one of the makeshift camps that survivors are in. Luckily no one was hurt by the cartons holding 12 meals. But the small amount of food dropped caused an outbreak of violence among the desperate crowd resulting in injuries to several, including small children. Tossing food and water from hovering aircraft without enough guards to keep the crowds in control is NOT a good plan.