International aid for Hurricane Charley?

[Knife]

So, I've been trying to find out if any other country has been 'sending' help to Florida after Hurricane Charley. So far, I've found nothing. Does any one have anything in this area?

Granted, I know that the Red Cross is there, but has any country pledged help? The UN? Anyone?

[StarshipTitanic]

So, I've been trying to find out if any other country has been 'sending' help to Florida after Hurricane Charley. So far, I've found nothing. Does any one have anything in this area?

Granted, I know that the Red Cross is there, but has any country pledged help? The UN? Anyone?

I've never heard of any international aid going to the US, but maybe I've never looked hard enough...

[Alyeska]

The world rarely bothers with international aide for the US. I think that September 11th is the closest we have ever gotten. The US has enough resources of its own it doesn't need international aide. Now if the US had a Huricane flood the entirety of Florida, we might get some help.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Why would anyone want to give aid to a hurricane?

[Jalinth]

So, I've been trying to find out if any other country has been 'sending' help to Florida after Hurricane Charley. So far, I've found nothing. Does any one have anything in this area?

Granted, I know that the Red Cross is there, but has any country pledged help? The UN? Anyone?

Generally help is sent when that country's own resources are overwhelmed. The US has so many resources that a mere hurricane doesn't really cut it.

If California ever gets the "big one" then you could see foreign aid coming in. Otherwise, the US has its National Guard, military, police, and FEMA to draw on first.

They do draw upon other countries from time to time - firefighters do go back and forth between Canada and the US for large forest fires (where the province or state can spare them).

[RogueIce]

I don't know if they sent any for Andrew, but if they did I never heard about it. And this was much smaller than Andrew was.

Again, like everyone else said, we have what we need here in the State mostly (especially since it wasn't all that widespread). Emergency crews, utility crews, etc, were all coming from other counties that weren't affected (Hillsborough and Miami-Dade come immediately to mind, because that's who I heard about), plus we do have the National Guard. And whatever we can't provide for ourselves, well, I'm sure Georgia, Alabama, and the rest of the continental US can pitch in if need be.

Florida, more or less, is prepared for hurricanes to hit. We have to be, really. At any rate, like people have said, foreign aid is only likely to come if the US itself couldn't do it on it's own (or for something big like 9/11). The US can handle this, so there's no need.

Now, if one of those monsters that's bigger than the entire state decided to hit, and it's a Category 5, that would be a different story, depending on how wide the damaging winds are spread.

Why would anyone want to give aid to a hurricane?

Uh, same reason they might give aid to some country that gets hit by floods (I've seen examples of poorer countries getting aid when that happens)? Y'know, humanitarian reasons and all that. I'm sure if the hurricane were big and bad enough so as to do significant damage to, say, most of the peninsula, we might get some foreign aid (if most of FLorida's resources are taken out, we'd need lots of help; foreign aid might take longer, but if a sufficiently big one hit, that probably wouldn't matter).

Also, one more reason might be because Florida is relatively remote; it would take quite a bit to send foreign aid down here (unless you think Cuba's gonna do it). If it were up in, say, New York or someplace like that, you might see help coming from Canada. But for Florida, you'd either have to drive across the country (from Canada) or come overseas. Unless it's a major (really, really major) hurricane, it would probably be too costly and get there too late to really be any help.

[BoredShirtless]

It's pretty obvious Knife is trying to say something else. He knows the US doesn't need international aid.....so what are you trying to get at Knife?

[Col. Crackpot]

The only aid I ever remember was after Hurricane Bob when i saw utility trucks from Ontario helping restore electricity. Then again, that has more to do with an unspoken 'you scratch my back, i'll scratch yours and it will all even out in the end' policy between the US and Canada, than it does with international aid. Aid really doesn't come to the US in any other way. Although we really don't go sending help to the EU or Japan when they're hit by an Earthquate or a flood. Uppitty Germans hellbent on conquest usually gets a response from us though.

[PainRack]

Didn't Canada and Australia contribute firefighters to fight a massive forest fire a few years back?

[Admiral Valdemar]

Uh, same reason they might give aid to some country that gets hit by floods (I've seen examples of poorer countries getting aid when that happens)? Y'know, humanitarian reasons and all that. I'm sure if the hurricane were big and bad enough so as to do significant damage to, say, most of the peninsula, we might get some foreign aid (if most of FLorida's resources are taken out, we'd need lots of help; foreign aid might take longer, but if a sufficiently big one hit, that probably wouldn't matter).

Methinks you missed my jocular comment. The way the thread title was worded led me to think people wanted to aid the destructive wind named Charley.

[Knife]

It's pretty obvious Knife is trying to say something else. He knows the US doesn't need international aid.....so what are you trying to get at Knife?

Not really, I know alot of this stuff sometimes is a quid pro quo or other times just political. However, since good old Charely has been touted as the second worse hurricane with billions in damage, I know the US in general can spit out billions, but I was courious that since it was billions if some one had gone ahead and kicked in some support.

Aid does come in many forms, I remember (like mentioned above) firefighters from Canada coming in and helping when the West was ablaze. I was wondering if anyone knew if some one sent someone or something to help in Florida.

Geez, you're soooo suspicious.

[Joe]

Didn't Canada and Australia contribute firefighters to fight a massive forest fire a few years back?

Probably, Canada and the U.S. regularly help each other out in the event of severe weather/natural disasters. I'd never heard of the Aussies doing anything like that that before, but it was awful nice of them.