Breaking News: Haiti hit by a 7.0 quake

[FSTargetDrone]

USS Carl Vinson reaches Haiti:

The Wall Street Journal

January 15, 2010, 2:12 PM ET

U.S. Carrier Carl Vinson Joins Relief Efforts

by Yochi Dreazen

WASHINGTON – The main elements of the U.S. relief effort began to arrive in Haiti, with the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson taking up position off Haiti’s coast and beginning to fly in water and other badly-needed supplies.

The Vinson, a nuclear-powered ship with a crew of more than 3,000, is the largest American vessel to reach Haiti since a powerful earthquake Tuesday killed thousands of people and destroyed large swaths of the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince.

The ship joins the rapidly expanding contingent of U.S. troops deployed to Haiti.

More than 3,000 soldiers from the Army’s 82nd Infantry Division will be on the ground in Haiti this weekend, and the USS Bataan, an amphibious ship carrying 2,200 Marines, is slated to arrive off the coast of Haiti next week alongside the USNS Comfort, the military’s largest medical ship.

Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Friday that up to 10,000 American troops will be operating in or near Haiti by Monday. Adm. Mullen, the nation’s top military officer, said the size of the U.S. military commitment could grow even larger in coming days.

Capt. Bruce Lindsey, the Vinson’s commanding officer, said in an interview that his ship was operating from a position in Port-au-Prince’s harbor, which was damaged in the quake. He said that the harbor’s piers and cranes appeared to have been hit the hardest, complicating efforts to bring in supplies by boat.

“Speed is of the essence in a crisis like this, but with the airport and the harbor so badly damaged there are clear limits to the amount of supplies that can be brought in any one time,” Capt. Lindsey said.

Some critics have begun to question the speed of the U.S. relief effort. Retired Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, who led the relief efforts in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, said on CNN Thursday that the American military “could have been there a day earlier.”

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the government had moved as fast as possible given the conditions in Haiti. He noted that the lack of organized food distribution systems meant that air dropping in supplies, a policy considered by senior U.S. military officials, could have sparked riots on the ground in Haiti as desperate quake survivors fought for food.

“There are just some certain facts of life that affect how quickly you can do some of these things,” Mr. Gates said. “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.”

The Vinson’s arrival in Haiti caps a tumultuous few days for the ship and its crew, who were floating off the coast of Norfolk, Va., when they received the initial reports about the earthquake in Haiti.

Capt. Lindsey said that he was ordered to “start leaning south” around midnight Tuesday and sped to Mayport, Fla., where the ship loaded additional helicopters, fuel and spare parts. By Wednesday morning, the ship was en route to Haiti at 30 knots, its top speed.

The Vinson brought an expanded complement of 19 helicopters to Haiti, and Capt. Lindsey said the ship will function as a “floating airport” for helicopters picking up supplies from other ships or from a new logistics hub at Port-au-Prince’s international airport and then flying the supplies into hard-to-reach areas of Haiti.

One of the largest ships in the American fleet, the Vinson also carries equipment capable of purifying large quantities of water and has extensive medical facilities, including two surgical rooms and dozens of hospital beds. It will be used to treat wounded Haitians until the Bataan and the Comfort arrive next week, military officials said.

The ship mounted four helicopter missions early Friday morning, and expects to have air crews operating around the clock for several weeks. Capt. Lindsey said the hardest part of his job will be preparing the ship’s sailors and crew members for the devastation and human suffering they are likely to see on the ground in Haiti.

“You want to help everybody,” he said. “But there are only so many of us, and there are only so many hours in the day.”

Additionally, USNS Comfort leaves Baltimore for Haiti on Saturday:

The Baltimore Sun

Comfort gets ready to sail

Navy ship to take medical personnel to care for people in earthquake-ravaged Haiti



Seaman Doug Ruby of the Philippines uncovers one of four rescue boats stored on the deck of the USNS Comfort on Thursday. The vessel is set to leave from its Canton Pier port on Saturday. (Baltimore Sun photo by Jed Kirschbaum / January 14, 2010)

By Joe Burris

January 15, 2010

The USNS Comfort hospital ship will leave Canton Pier on Saturday morning for its biggest mission ever, taking a wide range of medical care to earthquake-ravaged Haiti.

Military Sealift Command spokeswoman Laura Seal said the staff of more than 600 (including 560 medical personnel and 65 civil service mariners) will reach Haiti on Thursday for an open-ended mission.

And the crew expects to encounter horrific conditions on the island.

"When we go to casualty situations on a grand scale, we're going to see things like skull fractures, aneurysms and neurological issues," said Chad Singer, a hospital corpsman from New York. "We'll haveventilators. We'll have people with severe blood loss, so we'll have to do transfusions."

The 894-foot ship provides full hospital services to support disaster relief in the U.S. and worldwide. It has one of the largest trauma facilities in the country and also has four X-rays, one CAT scan unit, an MRI unit, a dental suite, a pharmacy and an optometry and lens laboratory. The ship maintains up to 5,000 units of blood and can serve as many as 1,000 patients.

It marks the second time in less than a year that it will head to Haiti. In July, the ship served as the platform for humanitarian and civic assistance in Haiti and other Caribbean nations. It treated more than 100,000 patients.

Comfort's most recent domestic missions were in late 2005, when it provided medical assistance to victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Supplies are needed

Navy Lt. Cmdr. Thomas Olivero of Frederick said that one of the biggest challenges in readying the ship for the Haiti mission is supplies. "While we're in port, we don't do procedures, we don't take care of patients. So the supplies that sit on board sometimes expire."

Supplies can be replenished at sea or boat-to-boat, he said, and helicopters can ferry patients and staff members on and off the ship.

Olivero added that it helps that the Comfort and its crew have been to the Caribbean nation. "It prepares us in terms of understanding their infrastructure and the way it's been devastated," he said. "We know what their limitations were during our last mission, and it's going to be even worse because of the devastation. Whatever we need, we're going to have to bring ourselves."

Many of the crew - some are local, others come from as far away as the Philippines - were part of the previous Haiti mission.

Anxious to leave

Officers such as Joseph Kranz can't wait to get going.

"This is our backyard. Haiti's our country," said the Rhode Island resident. From previous trips, the deck officer remembered local merchants coming out to the ship in canoes and trading local goods. He's bartered so often, he said, that the Haitians call him "Captain Joe."

Kranz stood on the ship's heliport and spoke about its engine's prowess as if he were describing a souped-up speedboat.

"We can get her going up to 15-16 knots," he said. "Once you get her moving, it takes a few miles to stop her."

Kranz said the ship will likely head down to Cape Henry, about 150 miles away. It will take about 12 hours to clear the pilot station there, he said, and helicopters can land on the ship as it is heading along Cape Henry.

"First, I expect our platform to be a support for orthopedic work - broken bones, there will be a lot of helicopters landing with broken people," said Kranz. "There's no doubt that every bed will be filled here. I don't know if we'll turn ourselves into a morgue or not. We have a morgue, but I think it can hold only 13 people."

Bracing for departure

Upon hearing that the Comfort was heading to Haiti, Heather Pulliam of Fort Meade began bracing herself for the horrors she might see by talking to her husband, a Baltimore police officer trainee.

Then, the mother of two children, ages 2 and 3, prepared them for her time away.

"I say, 'Mommy's going to help sick babies,' and they understand it," said Pulliam, assistant leading petty officer for nursing services. She's in charge of supplies for specialty services, such as dialysis and respiratory and cardiovascular care.

"As a mother, it touches my heart a little bit," she said. "As a mother and being in the medical community of the Navy, you have a little more compassion for the things we're going to be seeing and treating."

She said the fact that the crew has been there before helps them to adapt quickly. "A lot of the people of Haiti are familiar with us. The Haitians, just seeing our ship makes them already feel comfortable."

Even with all the medical facilities and equipment, the Comfort's most important asset might be a staff that's ready to leave at a moment's notice.

"So the last three years that I've been here, every day can your be your last day here at port," said Singer, "so you have to always be prepared."

Here's a picture of Comfort in NYC some time ago:

[PeZook]

Those things are a godsend in disaster-stricken areas like these. They're essentially an extra (or only, in this case) hospital just *poof* appearing out of nowhere. It's still a drop in the ocean, but you can imagine that just seeing this massive white ship floating off the coast can bring a new hope to people who lost everything.

It would be great if more rich nations built and operated similar ships instead of more aircraft carriers or missile cruisers.

[FSTargetDrone]

Those things are a godsend in disaster-stricken areas like these. They're essentially an extra (or only, in this case) hospital just *poof* appearing out of nowhere. It's still a drop in the ocean, but you can imagine that just seeing this massive white ship floating off the coast can bring a new hope to people who lost everything.

It would be great if more rich nations built and operated similar ships instead of more aircraft carriers or missile cruisers.

The US Navy has another, similar ship, USNS Mercy (many pictures here) based on the West Coast of the US, in San Diego. Both are converted oil tankers.

[Commander 598]

It always warms my heart to see a bloated runaway military budget bringing goodwill to the disaster stricken.

[Broomstick]

The US Navy has another, similar ship, USNS Mercy (many pictures here) based on the West Coast of the US, in San Diego. Both are converted oil tankers.

One of SD.netizens served on the USNS Mercy during a shooting war (the first Iraq war, when Kuwait was invaded). If you have questions about the capability of such ships I'd ask our buddy mingo.

[RedImperator]

There certainly are volcanoes in the Caribbean - please tell me that there is NOT a chance of one appearing on/under/near Haiti....?

And possible aftershocks through February? That is... disturbing. And would certainly complicate rescue and rebuilding.

Chewie can correct me if I'm wrong, but Haiti isn't anywhere near the subduction zone which creates the Caribbean volcanoes. Santo Domingo probably was formed volcanically, but that was a few dozen million years ago.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

There certainly are volcanoes in the Caribbean - please tell me that there is NOT a chance of one appearing on/under/near Haiti....?

And possible aftershocks through February? That is... disturbing. And would certainly complicate rescue and rebuilding.

Chewie can correct me if I'm wrong, but Haiti isn't anywhere near the subduction zone which creates the Caribbean volcanoes. Santo Domingo probably was formed volcanically, but that was a few dozen million years ago.

Santo Domingo is the capitol city of the Dominican Republic. The island that nation shares with Haiti is Hispaniola, as originally named by Columbus. Santo Domingo is used falsely to refer to the entire island because the Spanish claimed all of it and that was the name of their colony there--the name of the former colony which became Haiti was Saint-Domingue. Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, and Jamaica, collectively called the Greater Antilles, are made up of continental rock, not volcanic rock (the Lesser Antilles are volanic and/or coral), so volcanism had no real part in their formation.

[RedImperator]

There certainly are volcanoes in the Caribbean - please tell me that there is NOT a chance of one appearing on/under/near Haiti....?

And possible aftershocks through February? That is... disturbing. And would certainly complicate rescue and rebuilding.

Chewie can correct me if I'm wrong, but Haiti isn't anywhere near the subduction zone which creates the Caribbean volcanoes. Santo Domingo probably was formed volcanically, but that was a few dozen million years ago.

Santo Domingo is the capitol city of the Dominican Republic. The island that nation shares with Haiti is Hispaniola, as originally named by Columbus. Santo Domingo is used falsely to refer to the entire island because the Spanish claimed all of it and that was the name of their colony there--the name of the former colony which became Haiti was Saint-Domingue. Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, and Jamaica, collectively called the Greater Antilles, are made up of continental rock, not volcanic rock (the Lesser Antilles are volanic and/or coral), so volcanism had no real part in their formation.

Shit, you're right. Brain fart (about the island name; I didn't know the Greater Antilles were continental).

[Sea Skimmer]

Those things are a godsend in disaster-stricken areas like these. They're essentially an extra (or only, in this case) hospital just *poof* appearing out of nowhere. It's still a drop in the ocean, but you can imagine that just seeing this massive white ship floating off the coast can bring a new hope to people who lost everything.

It would be great if more rich nations built and operated similar ships instead of more aircraft carriers or missile cruisers.

Considering no one else on earth but Russia has a proper aircraft carrier or missile cruiser right now that wouldn’t gain much. The Russians also had four hospital ships until relatively recently when all were stricken, the Chinese now own one of the hulks and are considering restoring it. Lots of nations do however build large amphibious warfare ships which have very considerable medical facilities, and the trend has been to heavily expand upon those features in new designs as well as making provisions to takeover all the hundreds of marine berthing spaces for more patient rooms. So that nearly does give you a hospital ship.

It makes more sense though for people to just stockpile medical gear they can airlift then pour it into a completely dedicated ship. A hospital ship from say Europe would take at least two weeks to arrive if was maintained as the same readiness as the US ones, one sailing from Japan would take more like a month. That’s nice to have for follow on care, but it does little to aid people who are dieing in the streets now. Haiti is just immensely screwed over by only having two worthwhile runways in the entire country but if they can start clearing roads then all the ones in the Dominican Republican can be exploited too.

[Broomstick]

They are clearing the roads. With bulldozers and dumptrucks.




The first aid conveys, trucks full of supplies, left the Dominican Republic the morning after the quake. They are encountering the same problem of blocked roads as the people bringing help in through the airport are. There is just so much debris, and dead bodies, that the aid is almost impossible to get through.

With that, can we mention the two saving graces here?

1) The airport IS usable.

2) It hasn't rained. Can you imagine what this would be like, with dust and rubble turned into mud and people becoming hypothermic because there is no shelter? Not to mention the effect of a rainfall on... there is no way to be delicate about this... piles of human shit that are in the street as I doubt there is an operating flush toilet anywhere in that city, and the sewer system is probably as fucked up as the rest of the infrastructure.

[Simon_Jester]

In your opinion, then, rain would actually be a net negative as far as the clean water supply and public health issues go?

[Lonestar]

Those things are a godsend in disaster-stricken areas like these. They're essentially an extra (or only, in this case) hospital just *poof* appearing out of nowhere. It's still a drop in the ocean, but you can imagine that just seeing this massive white ship floating off the coast can bring a new hope to people who lost everything.

It would be great if more rich nations built and operated similar ships instead of more aircraft carriers or missile cruisers.

Amphibs are often used as Medical ships. I seem to recall more than one mission where a USN amphib set sail without a Marine detachment for the express purpose of medical missions to other countries. Medical facilities on such ships are pretty better than anything in the countries they visit anyway.

[Broomstick]

In your opinion, then, rain would actually be a net negative as far as the clean water supply and public health issues go?

The only way rain would be helpful is IF you could catch some in a clean bucket for drinking water. That assumes you 1) have a bucket and 2) it's not too filthy. Oh, it would also settle some of the concrete dust, which can be quite irritating.

The negatives are that it could cause chilling in people, and in the ill/wounded that chilling could be fatal, increasing the death toll. It will also wash human shit into the mud and dust, further increasing the risk of illness and epidemic. This could potentially contaminate some clean water supplies. It will certainly be bad for the ill and injured lying on the ground.

I suspect (though of course I'm no expert) that at this point rain could kill more people than it saves.

[Sea Skimmer]

Its worse then that. Haiti was already suffering heavily from mudslides the last several years owing to the complete level of deforestation in the country. Now after an earthquake the land will be even more prone to shifting, and nothing will stop it when it wants too. That won’t just kill people outside, it will block the roads even worse then they are now. A bad rainstorm now could be awful, and make things much worse in remote areas which were not heavily affected by the initial quake.

[Alyeska]

With the area so heavily devastated and hard to clean up, the incoming helicopters ought to be a very big help. And its good to see the Coast Guard was already on the scene. I had wondered if they had ships in the area. They are very good at this stuff.

[SAMAS]

Rush determined to beat Robertson for Biggest Jackass.

Rush Limbaugh is not backing down from his claim that President Barack Obama is trying to score political points off the earthquake in Haiti.

Challenged by a caller during his show Thursday, Limbaugh said: “If I said it, I meant to say it, and I do believe that everything is political to this president.”

“Everything this president sees is a political opportunity, including Haiti, and he will use it to burnish his credentials with minorities in this country and around the world, and to accuse Republicans of having no compassion,” Limbaugh said in comments flagged by the liberal blog Think Progress.

Limbaugh has come under fire from both the right and the left for saying that the earthquake played directly into Obama’s hands, allowing him to look “compassionate.” The host claimed the White House’s response would bolster Obama’s standing in the “light-skinned and dark-skinned black community in this country.”

He also appeared to discourage help for the island nation, saying, “We've already donated to Haiti. It’s called the U.S. income tax.”

Critics have characterized Limbaugh’s comments as insensitive and tone-deaf at a time when heartbreaking images of the devastation dominate news coverage.

Confronted with some of that criticism, Limbaugh slammed a caller as “close-minded.”

“What I’m illustrating here is that you’re a blockhead,” Limbaugh shot back. “What I’m illustrating here is that you’re a close-minded bigot who is ill-informed.”

“If you had listened to this program for a modicum of time, you would know it,” he said. “But instead, you’re a blockhead. Your mind is totally closed. You have tampons in your ears. Nothing is getting through other than the biased crap that you read.”

I mean seriously, what is wrong with the man?

[CaptainChewbacca]

With the area so heavily devastated and hard to clean up, the incoming helicopters ought to be a very big help. And its good to see the Coast Guard was already on the scene. I had wondered if they had ships in the area. They are very good at this stuff.

Its only 650 or so miles from Haiti to Florida, which is a very fast trip in good weather.

As for the tectonics of Haiti, it isn't in a subduction ZONE, its actually on a strike-slip fault very similar to the San Andreas fault in California or the Northern Anatolian Fault along the turkish coast. NO danger of volcanos there.

[Broomstick]

Its worse then that. Haiti was already suffering heavily from mudslides the last several years owing to the complete level of deforestation in the country. Now after an earthquake the land will be even more prone to shifting, and nothing will stop it when it wants too. That won’t just kill people outside, it will block the roads even worse then they are now. A bad rainstorm now could be awful, and make things much worse in remote areas which were not heavily affected by the initial quake.

Ah, right - I forgot about the mudslides.

A good rain could cause some of the rubble piles in the city to shift and slide, too, I suppose.

Really - they don't want a rainstorm right now. Thank goodness it is NOT the hurricane season right now!

[Broomstick]

Challenged by a caller during his show Thursday, Limbaugh said: “If I said it, I meant to say it, and I do believe that everything is political to this president.”

“Everything this president sees is a political opportunity, including Haiti, and he will use it to burnish his credentials with minorities in this country and around the world, and to accuse Republicans of having no compassion,” Limbaugh said in comments flagged by the liberal blog Think Progress.

Well - it's not like {Katrina} no one {Katrina} has ever accused {Katrina} the Republicans {Katrina} of having no compassion before! {Katrina}

Limbaugh has come under fire from both the right and the left for saying that the earthquake played directly into Obama’s hands, allowing him to look “compassionate.” The host claimed the White House’s response would bolster Obama’s standing in the “light-skinned and dark-skinned black community in this country.”

Funny how doing the right thing does increase one's "standing" in ANY community with a heart.

Critics have characterized Limbaugh’s comments as insensitive and tone-deaf at a time when heartbreaking images of the devastation dominate news coverage.

Of course he's tone-deaf, you ninnies - he's fucking deaf!

Of course that doesn't explain his prior of compassion....

“What I’m illustrating here is that you’re a blockhead,” Limbaugh shot back. “What I’m illustrating here is that you’re a close-minded bigot who is ill-informed.”

Pot. Kettle.

I mean seriously, what is wrong with the man?

His cochlear implant needs adjusting and he requires a working sense of compassion.

[Broomstick]

This is a report on the dead and mass graves. Some of the content is graphic, lots of dead people and devastation, although there are also some shots of people cooking on sidewalks.

And this is video of the port. It truly illustrates how fucked up the port is, and why you just can't pull up a ship alongside - there's some major wreckage under the water.

[Pelranius]

I don't suppose that hovercraft would be useful for landing supplies?

[The Duchess of Zeon]

This is a report on the dead and mass graves. Some of the content is graphic, lots of dead people and devastation, although there are also some shots of people cooking on sidewalks.

And this is video of the port. It truly illustrates how fucked up the port is, and why you just can't pull up a ship alongside - there's some major wreckage under the water.

Worse, I know all about what earthquakes do in harbours in situations like this, and they basically will have to re-chart the bottom, which will be one of the jobs for the smaller navy and coastguard ships. It's entirely possible that an area in the roadsted where container ships used to wait to be unloaded would now be shoal-water. The earthquake could easily have vastly rearranged the underwater topography so that even if the docks were intact no ship could approach them.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Without the Port, we'll starve to death, that's all.

Port-au-Prince, Haiti (CNN) -- Raymond Thomas is a jolly man who laughs easily and likes to say "Forget it" a lot.

He'd like to forget the devastation wrought at the Port-au-Prince harbor where his fleet of trucks used to pick up cargo.

Tuesday's 7.0-magnitude earthquake sent a quarter-mile pier crumbling into the sea along with two of his trucks. The few workers who went into the water swam to safety, Thomas said, but the port remains shut down, and desperately needed aid cannot be unloaded quickly.

"Now we're just starving to death," he said, worried that the airport and smaller harbors cannot handle the necessary volume of relief supplies.

"That was the whole country right there," he added, pointing at two toppled cranes on the remains of the pier that stand out against the clear-blue sky.

Thomas owns Raymond and Sons Trucking, a fleet of 35 trucks that haul cargo from the port. The company employed about 50 employees, all of them now out of work.

"I'm out," Thomas said.

The port won't be back for a while. Roads have been split apart and buckled, fences have fallen over.

"Oh, forget it," Thomas said. "Forget it. It might take a year to rebuild it. Forget it."

Yet he feels fortunate because although his home was destroyed and his business is shattered, no one in his family died in the quake.

Asked what happened, he demurs with a hearty laugh. "Forget it," he says. "I don't want to talk about it."

He then relents, calling his family's survival "a miracle."

His wife was outside their house and he was driving home in his red 1995 Honda CRV sport utility vehicle.
Video: Supplies delivered to Haiti
Video: Haiti aid in limbo
Video: US carrier picks up aid for Haiti
RELATED TOPICS

* Haiti
* Earthquakes
* Port-au-Prince

"I felt like the whole car was going to take off like an airplane," he said, laughing.

He wasn't wearing a seat belt, he admits.

"This is Haiti. In Miami, I wear a seat belt." Another laugh.

Thomas' 40-year-old daughter, Marjorie, and her 15-month-old son had just left earlier that afternoon to return to her home in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Asked if it was a miracle that she missed the quake by such a short time, he laughs again, saying, "You bet your sweet heart."

On Friday, he was wearing a bullet-proof vest after someone tried to rob him the day before. Someone wanted to take his cell phone he said, and the port is near the roughest part of town.

For now, Thomas and his wife are sleeping in a tent.

And for now, also, his mind is on the port. He's not alone.

Tug boat owner Roger Rouzier also seem a dim future without the port.

"We cannot receive the help by plane," Rouzier said Friday. "We need to receive help by boat."

Rouzier estimates that before the earthquake, more than 70 ships each unloaded about 8,000 tons of material every month.

"I personally unload three or four a day," he said. "The whole country depends on this port. If we're going to save people, we have to do it by boat."

Without the port, Thomas sees serious consequences for Haiti, one of the poorest nations on Earth.

"We'll starve to death, that's all," he said. "We'll just starve to death."

And it won't take long for trouble to reach the streets, he said. Especially since many of the nation's criminals escaped when Port-au-Prince's prison collapsed in the quake.

"Very soon we're going to have a riot," Thomas said, this time not laughing.

How soon?

"I don't give you a week," he said.

No laugh there either.

It's really bad. The majority of the population of Haiti WILL STARVE TO DEATH if that port is not reopened or the world's amphibious warfare forces and other civilian craft with the capability to land cargo directly onto beaches is not immediately mustered to the task of bringing in food to the population, because:

Not less than 75% of Haiti's food is imported.

About 75 percent of Haiti's food supply is accounted for by imports. There is some local production of fruits, vegetables, rice, cereals, poultry meat, and other products, but not in sufficient quantities to meet local demand. The attitude toward imported food is generally positive, but, outside of staple foods such as beans, imported foods are usually considered unaffordable by the mass of the population. The origin of the products does not play an important role in most cases, as only price matters to the consumer.

The population of Haiti is 10 million people, and this information means that we have no way of delivering food to the 7.5 million people who are dependent on outside food to avoid starving to death. And many crops and fields were likely destroyed, making the situation even worse. To avert a massive famine in Haiti we are going to almost certainly need to import, at minimum, 250,000 tons of food a month, and there presently exists literally no infrastructure whatsoever with which to do so.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I don't suppose that hovercraft would be useful for landing supplies?

We have some better things, like the Army's LSVs which can handle 2,000 tons of cargo, and modern naval LCUs which can handle 350 tons, and can take shipping containers directly to shore (hat-tip to Sea Skimmer on that). We'll need a crane ship off shore to do the transfers, and ultimately, of course, a floating pontoon pier can be rigged. But all of that has to be done rapidly, as people will be starving to death rapidly, and with that, chaos. And we will need huge military engineering units to start restoring roads into the interior to prevent the population there from starving to death as well, and reestablishing the road links to the Dominican Republic so food can also be brought in from Dominican ports, which may need to be upgraded to handle that level of traffic.

[Alyeska]

They can spend time trying to repair the ports. What they can also do is taken advantage of Domican ports and use heavy equipment to clear basic road ways.