.Clogged Airport, Ruined Seaport Delay Aid
A demolished seaport, a congested one-runway airport, a shattered communications system, and even questions about how to coordinate the multi-national relief effort delayed the delivery of aid to an increasingly desperate Haiti and highlighted the immense obstacles that lie ahead.
The Toussaint L'Ouverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince is overwhelmed, and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has put a ground stop into place for all U.S.-originating aircraft, including military, until 6 p.m. EST. Parking space on the airport ramp is limited, and many military and humanitarian aircraft are already on the ground there. About a dozen planes are sitting on the tarmac, with another 20 on the grass. The airport has also run out of aircraft fuel, so inbound planes have to carry enough fuel to be able to leave without refueling.
According to the FAA, the humanitarian response is so overwhelming that air-traffic controllers in Haiti can't handle the volume of flights arriving in Port-au-Prince. The airspace "is saturated," said Kathleen Bergen, an FAA spokeswoman for the agency's southern region in College Park, Ga. Aircraft are holding in the air and en route to Haiti, she said, because the capital's airport isn't accepting any additional flights at the time.
The control tower is inoperative; the U.S. military is providing air traffic control. With thousands of victims camped out at the Port-Au-Prince airport and little or no electricity at the site, officials are constrained in their ability to handle the flow of planes. Night operations will pose particular problems.
Already, there are at least 4,000 metric tons of aid supplies at the airport. "The big issue is how you get it out," says Tanya Weinberg of aid group Save the Children. "Planes haven't been unloaded."
Save the Children sent two teams that departed from the Dominican Republic, but only one was able to get in. The plane was also smaller than what the group had hoped to use, so supplies such as fresh water and food were left behind because they exceeded the weight limit.
The road from the airport to the city is now passable, said Hussein Halane, also of Save the Children. Several embassies pitched in to clear the debris. "We're at the very, very beginning of a long relief effort," said Mr. Halane.
In addition to parked planes and supplies, stranded Americans and other foreigners waited on the steaming tarmac, hoping for a ride out.
U.S. Air Force teams are scouting for alternate landing spots and makeshift strips that could accommodate choppers or cargo planes, even as they work to facilitate departures and arrivals at the main airport.
Making matters worse is the that supplies cannot come in by sea. Haiti's main seaport has "collapsed and is not operational," says Maersk Line's Mary Ann Kotlarich. The main dock is partially submerged. Cranes that moved containers on and off ships at the port are now partially under water and listing badly. Ships carrying supplies have nowhere to dock.
Numerous maritime companies are trying to devise stop-gap solutions, but nothing is in place yet.
"Nothing has been proposed that would really be a solution at this point," says Mark Miller of Crowley Maritime Corp., a Jacksonville, Fla., shipping company that maintains an extensive logistics network in the Caribbean.
Maersk Line operates a small ship that unloads containers from larger vessels and then brings them to the port. That vessel is currently anchored off the coast of Port-au-Prince, as the company tries to determine how it can be put to use.
Shipping companies are now examining other areas in the vicinity to see if they can find a place that could serve as a makeshift unloading area for ships.
"What we are doing and what others are doing with various agencies is to see if there is a suitable, workable location anywhere around the harbor where we could get a vessel," said Mr. Miller.
However, any new location must first undergo a survey to determine whether the earthquake tremors have changed water depths or dumped debris that could cause vessels to run aground.
Even if they are able to create a new area where ships can dock, it would likely be heavily constrained and unable to handle high volumes, say people in the industry. One of the biggest problems is the lack of any stationery crane to unload shipping containers.
For now, the U.S. Navy has helicopters able to bring material ashore, and U.S. Air Force special operations troops already in Haiti have equipment to transfer some cargo from ships to land.
Overall coordination of the vast, multi-national relief effort has not yet been fully clarified. The United Nations has 3,000 troops in and around Port-au-Prince who are providing security, distributing aid and removing corpses. The U.S. military is sending 3,500 troops to help with a variety of relief and policing tasks. Asked Thursday morning if the American troops would be under United Nations control, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon made it clear that the command structure had not yet been worked out.
"The Force Commander of the UN peacekeeping operations will coordinate, I hope, with the US military assistance team," said Mr. Ban. "I know that the South Command has been designated to provide assistance. I am sure that the military leaders will fully coordinate with each other."
U.S. State Department officials said the U.S. troops that are deploying to Haiti will work closely with the United Nations security force there but remain solely under American command.
President Barack Obama has put the U.S. Agency for International Development in charge of coordinating the overall relief effort, so its director, Rajiv Shah, will be the highest-ranking American official working on Haiti. Gen. Keen will take his orders from Kenneth Merten, the American ambassador to Haiti.
David Wimhurst, the U.N.'s director of communications in Haiti, told journalists in New York via video link that aid flights were arriving regualrly to the airport. He also said the U.N. had sufficient forces to distribute the aid that has arrived. "So far we feel confident that we have enough [U.N.] military," he said. "If necessary we will bring more peacekeepers from outside the city." Mr. Wilmhurst added in the streets of Port-au-Prince, "The Haitian police has disappeared. They are not visible."
Mr. Wilmhurst was on the third floor of the Christopher Hotel, the U.N. headquarters in Port-au-Prince, when violent shaking made him cling to desk. Part of the hotel collapsed, blocking the exit. So he and 15 other staff escaped out his window and down a rickety ladder.
Another problem: The broken communications system. Louis Belanger, a spokesman for humanitarian aid group Oxfam International, said the relief efforts were being hindered it was often impossible for people to communicate electronically. "There have been a lot of criticism from local authorities about the relief efforts, but in all fairness, if we could catch a break and get some communication up and running, things would go a lot faster," Mr. Belanger said, speaking by phone from the Haiti-Dominican Republic border. "It's extremely difficult without landlines, Internet connectivity or cellphones."
It is getting easier to communicate. On Thursday, satellite-services provider Intelsat established two communications networks –combining satellite and terrestrial links – which helped humanitarian groups, media companies and local telecommunication operators regain Internet access.
Members of the Los Angeles County Fire Department's search and rescue team flew to Port-au-Prince this morning with a 72 member squad, a spokesman said. Missionary Flights International, an aviation service out of Fort Prince, Fl. continued daily flights to Port-au-Prince.
But other relief organizations said Thursday they were unable to make it to Haiti despite supplies and volunteers. "We've had a lot of roadblocks in working with the administration and getting through to the military," said Charles Idleson of National Nurses United, a union representing around 150,000 nurses. Mr. Idleson said roughly 3,500 of its members volunteered to travel to Haiti, but the union has so far been unable to get a response from the U.S. government for transportation to Port-au-Prince. Instead, a small delegation of nurses plans to fly from Santo Domingo on Friday aboard a commercial jet.
Irenea Renuncio-Mateo, Latin America political analyst for IHS Global Insight, said coordinating the massive relief effort would take time. "The response needs to be coordinated and planned," she said. "Obviously this takes time. They can't just send people. They need to know how they're going to re-establish minimal infrastructure, water, and electricity."
At the airport, David Hornish was hoping for a flight out. He had come before the temblor stuck with a humanitarian group to dig water wells. Mr. Hornish was driving in Port-au-Price when the ground shook so violently that "the truck went backwards by itself," he said. He made it back to the compound where he had been staying. "It was five stories," Mr. Hornish said. "Gone."
He and his colleague, Bruce Oberlin from Akron, Ohio, spent five hours digging one person out of the rubble. Three others died. They buried one in the back yard. "Our choice was to lay him out in the street," Mr. Oberlin said.
Port-au-Prince is a shambles, and at midday Thursday rescuers were still a rare sight in some parts of the city. Men and women idled in front of crumbled buildings, sometimes climbing atop in a likely futile search for survivors. An electronics store along a major shopping street is crumpled. An elementary school is a ragged mess of concrete. A strip mall is leveled. A corpse, wrapped in a white sheet and swarming with flies, lay in an intersection.
WSJ
The Toussaint L'Ouverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince is overwhelmed, and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has put a ground stop into place for all U.S.-originating aircraft, including military, until 6 p.m. EST. Parking space on the airport ramp is limited, and many military and humanitarian aircraft are already on the ground there. About a dozen planes are sitting on the tarmac, with another 20 on the grass. The airport has also run out of aircraft fuel, so inbound planes have to carry enough fuel to be able to leave without refueling.
According to the FAA, the humanitarian response is so overwhelming that air-traffic controllers in Haiti can't handle the volume of flights arriving in Port-au-Prince. The airspace "is saturated," said Kathleen Bergen, an FAA spokeswoman for the agency's southern region in College Park, Ga. Aircraft are holding in the air and en route to Haiti, she said, because the capital's airport isn't accepting any additional flights at the time.
The control tower is inoperative; the U.S. military is providing air traffic control. With thousands of victims camped out at the Port-Au-Prince airport and little or no electricity at the site, officials are constrained in their ability to handle the flow of planes. Night operations will pose particular problems.
Already, there are at least 4,000 metric tons of aid supplies at the airport. "The big issue is how you get it out," says Tanya Weinberg of aid group Save the Children. "Planes haven't been unloaded."
Save the Children sent two teams that departed from the Dominican Republic, but only one was able to get in. The plane was also smaller than what the group had hoped to use, so supplies such as fresh water and food were left behind because they exceeded the weight limit.
The road from the airport to the city is now passable, said Hussein Halane, also of Save the Children. Several embassies pitched in to clear the debris. "We're at the very, very beginning of a long relief effort," said Mr. Halane.
In addition to parked planes and supplies, stranded Americans and other foreigners waited on the steaming tarmac, hoping for a ride out.
U.S. Air Force teams are scouting for alternate landing spots and makeshift strips that could accommodate choppers or cargo planes, even as they work to facilitate departures and arrivals at the main airport.
Making matters worse is the that supplies cannot come in by sea. Haiti's main seaport has "collapsed and is not operational," says Maersk Line's Mary Ann Kotlarich. The main dock is partially submerged. Cranes that moved containers on and off ships at the port are now partially under water and listing badly. Ships carrying supplies have nowhere to dock.
Numerous maritime companies are trying to devise stop-gap solutions, but nothing is in place yet.
"Nothing has been proposed that would really be a solution at this point," says Mark Miller of Crowley Maritime Corp., a Jacksonville, Fla., shipping company that maintains an extensive logistics network in the Caribbean.
Maersk Line operates a small ship that unloads containers from larger vessels and then brings them to the port. That vessel is currently anchored off the coast of Port-au-Prince, as the company tries to determine how it can be put to use.
Shipping companies are now examining other areas in the vicinity to see if they can find a place that could serve as a makeshift unloading area for ships.
"What we are doing and what others are doing with various agencies is to see if there is a suitable, workable location anywhere around the harbor where we could get a vessel," said Mr. Miller.
However, any new location must first undergo a survey to determine whether the earthquake tremors have changed water depths or dumped debris that could cause vessels to run aground.
Even if they are able to create a new area where ships can dock, it would likely be heavily constrained and unable to handle high volumes, say people in the industry. One of the biggest problems is the lack of any stationery crane to unload shipping containers.
For now, the U.S. Navy has helicopters able to bring material ashore, and U.S. Air Force special operations troops already in Haiti have equipment to transfer some cargo from ships to land.
Overall coordination of the vast, multi-national relief effort has not yet been fully clarified. The United Nations has 3,000 troops in and around Port-au-Prince who are providing security, distributing aid and removing corpses. The U.S. military is sending 3,500 troops to help with a variety of relief and policing tasks. Asked Thursday morning if the American troops would be under United Nations control, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon made it clear that the command structure had not yet been worked out.
"The Force Commander of the UN peacekeeping operations will coordinate, I hope, with the US military assistance team," said Mr. Ban. "I know that the South Command has been designated to provide assistance. I am sure that the military leaders will fully coordinate with each other."
U.S. State Department officials said the U.S. troops that are deploying to Haiti will work closely with the United Nations security force there but remain solely under American command.
President Barack Obama has put the U.S. Agency for International Development in charge of coordinating the overall relief effort, so its director, Rajiv Shah, will be the highest-ranking American official working on Haiti. Gen. Keen will take his orders from Kenneth Merten, the American ambassador to Haiti.
David Wimhurst, the U.N.'s director of communications in Haiti, told journalists in New York via video link that aid flights were arriving regualrly to the airport. He also said the U.N. had sufficient forces to distribute the aid that has arrived. "So far we feel confident that we have enough [U.N.] military," he said. "If necessary we will bring more peacekeepers from outside the city." Mr. Wilmhurst added in the streets of Port-au-Prince, "The Haitian police has disappeared. They are not visible."
Mr. Wilmhurst was on the third floor of the Christopher Hotel, the U.N. headquarters in Port-au-Prince, when violent shaking made him cling to desk. Part of the hotel collapsed, blocking the exit. So he and 15 other staff escaped out his window and down a rickety ladder.
Another problem: The broken communications system. Louis Belanger, a spokesman for humanitarian aid group Oxfam International, said the relief efforts were being hindered it was often impossible for people to communicate electronically. "There have been a lot of criticism from local authorities about the relief efforts, but in all fairness, if we could catch a break and get some communication up and running, things would go a lot faster," Mr. Belanger said, speaking by phone from the Haiti-Dominican Republic border. "It's extremely difficult without landlines, Internet connectivity or cellphones."
It is getting easier to communicate. On Thursday, satellite-services provider Intelsat established two communications networks –combining satellite and terrestrial links – which helped humanitarian groups, media companies and local telecommunication operators regain Internet access.
Members of the Los Angeles County Fire Department's search and rescue team flew to Port-au-Prince this morning with a 72 member squad, a spokesman said. Missionary Flights International, an aviation service out of Fort Prince, Fl. continued daily flights to Port-au-Prince.
But other relief organizations said Thursday they were unable to make it to Haiti despite supplies and volunteers. "We've had a lot of roadblocks in working with the administration and getting through to the military," said Charles Idleson of National Nurses United, a union representing around 150,000 nurses. Mr. Idleson said roughly 3,500 of its members volunteered to travel to Haiti, but the union has so far been unable to get a response from the U.S. government for transportation to Port-au-Prince. Instead, a small delegation of nurses plans to fly from Santo Domingo on Friday aboard a commercial jet.
Irenea Renuncio-Mateo, Latin America political analyst for IHS Global Insight, said coordinating the massive relief effort would take time. "The response needs to be coordinated and planned," she said. "Obviously this takes time. They can't just send people. They need to know how they're going to re-establish minimal infrastructure, water, and electricity."
At the airport, David Hornish was hoping for a flight out. He had come before the temblor stuck with a humanitarian group to dig water wells. Mr. Hornish was driving in Port-au-Price when the ground shook so violently that "the truck went backwards by itself," he said. He made it back to the compound where he had been staying. "It was five stories," Mr. Hornish said. "Gone."
He and his colleague, Bruce Oberlin from Akron, Ohio, spent five hours digging one person out of the rubble. Three others died. They buried one in the back yard. "Our choice was to lay him out in the street," Mr. Oberlin said.
Port-au-Prince is a shambles, and at midday Thursday rescuers were still a rare sight in some parts of the city. Men and women idled in front of crumbled buildings, sometimes climbing atop in a likely futile search for survivors. An electronics store along a major shopping street is crumpled. An elementary school is a ragged mess of concrete. A strip mall is leveled. A corpse, wrapped in a white sheet and swarming with flies, lay in an intersection.
WSJ
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