Haiti

ummm - while I can kinda see your point - I would offer a couple other things to consider

1 - while getting heavy equipment to find those still trapped is VERY important - there are also thousands and thousands who are not trapped, wandering about, injured, hungry and exposed to the elements.  There are more in this group than in the trapped and still alive group.

2 - even when you send heavy equipment, you also now face another tactical issue - if this had happened in Los Angeles, there would be skematics and all kinds of detailed construction information available to analyze and understand what parts of the building are where - just like with 9/11.  That more than likely doesn't exist at all in Haiti.  So when you have your crew and equipment there, you can just hurry up and go in - the safety of the operating crew is also important - if they die, who's left to drive the bulldozer?

3 - relief and concentration has to be paid to those who are most likely to live at this point.  That's harsh and very hard to swallow - especially when you hear the stories and see all what's going on.  But filling a ship with food for 5,000 who survived and are moving around is more important than putting a bulldozer on that ship instead.

4 - the infrastructure and facilities in Haiti are scare already - now non existent.  There are literally places equipment can't go, where certain size planes can't even land.  The response to New Orleans was just lazy - this delay (and I don't think it's a delay at all) is for REAL reasons. 

Hey Mack Mama!

I understand where you are coming from AND all of these are definitely valid points to consider..... BUT BUT I am sure that if  tactical or logistical issues were even being considered THEY (whoever the hell is in charge of these operations) would be bragging about them. We would see them around a table....trying to figure out a plan or something.  Like Glam said....What happened to those hospital ships that they can bring up to shore? Yet..they have to fly people to Fort Lauderdale for surgery one at a time??? Sanjay is there all alone trying to treat a tent load of patients. I don't know...seems as if....folks are being allowed to die. Even Anderson Cooper and the other reporters are acting as if they don't see any hope. Not a good sign.

I can understand them not wanting to take a crane on top of a building but to see a girls legs sticking out from under a slab of concrete...and folks trying to dig her out with their hands...even a small crane or some hand operated gizmo would have probably sufficed...yet they have nothing to access the people that are within arms reach.

Its just so sad...and I am just venting. 

Heavy equipment is crucial to restoring any infrastructure and preventing colapse in outlying areas.  Its needed for the survivors not just rescue efforts. 

Survivors cannot be moved out of Port Au Prince effectively until roads are cleared.  Shelter needs to be established away from the heart of the city.  Disease will spread rapidly under those insanitary conditions.  Make shift camps have formed as far as people could walk , but until supplies can get through survivors will starve and disease will spread. 

There are a lot of Hatians in my area.  True story.  A doctor in an outlying suburb is trying to feed about 1000 people camped around her home.  Her family in the NYC area can get funds and supplies to her; however, there is no way to transport them from the ports to suburbia.  Debrie has blocked all roads. 

I agree the infrastructure is not great to start with.  However we could bulldoze through jungles in SE Aisia 40 years ago.   We can clear a path for emergency supplies to get through if it were a priority.   Between the UN and the US, the skills and resources exist.   Moving survivors out of the city should be a priority but it cannot happen until paths are cleared. 

I am just glad that they are sending the hospital ship.  I saw the inside of it; it is full of all the equipment that they need to help the injured.  It is so sad to watch.  When they have to put toothpaste under their nose because the smell of rotting bodies is hard to take.

Well...thats so good to hear. I missed that report as I have not been watching much. You would have thought they would have been dispatched much earlier.  

I see we both got pissed off at the same time. I was posting on Haiti too and I agree w/ you.  If people are sending all this money where is it going?

That's why black women should be running the world and not white men!  We can make something out of nothing and do it in a hurry too!



$100million dollars and giving them damned vitamin biscuits!!! Those are some pricey biscuits!

^5 @ That's why black women should be running the world and not white men! 

And speaking of those biscuits....I saw the people turning them down.  Not only because they did not look appetizing but because they think that they are being poisoned.  There is no trust.  I wonder if they were in fact reading those dates on the package wrong??? Probably were some stall azz biscuits.

Yes ,reading manufacture date for the expiration date...so ?

Huh??? I am just saying that I don't think that they are trusting the folks that are handing out the food. I know if you are hungry does not matter what the date says..stale or not. I think that they think that people are trying to poison them...otherwise I really can't figure out why they would turn food away just based on the date.  Hope they get more interpreters over there who can help them organize.  Need to enlist the aid of some of the english speaking residents too.  

LOL I wouldn't trust them either...I was just saying that from what I heard it was just a mix up with the people mixing up the dates...but I think like you said it just comes down to them not trusting them.

The "so?" in my post was just saying "who knows" ...not to confuse you