Ok on logistics once again, and why things are "taking so long"

[nadinbrzezinski]

Ok let me address a few points on the response to Haiti... since we have people frustrated, and perhaps I am, but angry not at all. Hell this is making my heart sing, and it also shows OUR response capacity has mostly been fixed since Katrina... what competent people can do.

1.- Time-Distance... the further you have a disaster scene the longer it gets to get resources on the ground. Yes it is that simple. The Christmas Tsunami and this quake are simply not around the corner. So a Navy ship leaving from Veracruz or Florida will take physical days to get there. There is nothing you can do to change that. To paraphrase Scotty, Capt'in, I cannot change the laws of physics!

2.- Planes are coming in, military aircraft only, why? They can refuel in the air if need be. So some of you are angry that they are leaving with unhurt citizens on board. Here is the math. Each human requires one liter of water\day just to stay alive, and at this point at least one MRE. If Air Forces, yes you read right, AIR FORCES come in loaded with supplies and leave with people that have no skills to help on the scene. This is a problem how? That is forty liters of water and forty MRE's per plane load, that I don't have to use on these people. Instead I can use those same resources on those that cannot leave.

3.- The Airport had a small issue yesterday when they had to turn back even a rescue team. They had no physical place where to put more stuff. Now that heavy lift is coming in that problem is mostly gone, for the moment. I am not counting on that secondary disaster not happening again. But the heavy lift is now coming... to use a trite word, the Marines are coming, and damn it they are bringing trucks with them... and SECURITY.

4.- Infrastructure. On the best of circumstances, that is a place like the US or Europe, your localized disaster can be isolated from help for upwards of 72 hours, why YOU ARE TOLD to be ready to be ON YOUR OWN for 72 hours. This is truly the worst case scenario for a disaster response. In the best of days Haiti did not have a working government or working roads... (and there are reasons for that, historic reasons) This is the worst of circumstances.

So you are frustrated, and you are second guessing. I am trying to put this together for you as informed, as in have done this, but let me assure you of this. The operation is being run like a well oiled military operation. It will be a pain for the CIC, since they have people showing from all over the world. But hey, I am sure the languages spoken will be amazing.

Oh and see what I said about refueling? One of those little things I hope comes out of this is a standard intake hose for military cargo planes for on air refueling. I mean all those folks bringing in Herccules, sure they can fly to the on air refueling station and get some gas, in a worst case. The Antonovs that are coming, from Russia... can't. The hoses simply do not match... period.

[tabatha]

1. Well said; thanks for that summary.

The infrastructure in Haiti compounds the problem, by a large factor.

[DevonRex]

2. K&R although somebody unrecc'd at the same time.

Logistics are a nightmare. Thank you for your concise post.

[Captain Hilts]

4. Weird someone clicked 'unrecommend'. nt

[Captain Hilts]

3. The SeaBees need to make another drop site or airstrip. nt

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. The seabees are comming but their priority will not be an airstrip

but the port. It will not look pretty, but one cargo ship equals many Hercules. And yes ships are inbound from all over the world, and the civilian ones need a port. Due to lack of cranes we may see a lot of locals with strong backs used to load and unload, which is also much slower, but the cranes went down.

Also some of the ships coming are anfibs but others are not. Ideally they could bring the roll on, roll off we have, but those are in the Gulf supporting the Army.

[Captain Hilts]

6. Yes, the Amphibs are coming from Little Creek. nt

[sweettater]

7. As I asked on another thread........

Why can't food, water, medical supplies, etc. be air dropped? If it had been done immediately as the resources arrived the desperation would not have been as high. Now desperate people will do desperate things and I can't blame them.

[Dappleganger]

10. Did you not even read the OP's posts in those other threads???

Air drops are extremely dangerous for everyone involved and the loss of supplies enroute is high.

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. Here you go,

Air Drops, WHY NOT??? Updated at 10:22 PM

Air drops.

There are several problems with air drops, which are not obvious to people who have never had to deal with them. We did, as training.

Gear tends not to survive the landing, some delicate gear, see not bandages and gauze medical equipment, and even bottles, water bottles... oh IV bags burst nicely.

You need a clear area without people, or the risk of injury to those on the ground is great. This city is more than just a little crowded so finding a relatively flat, and chiefly "safe" LZ... good luck, and you still need people on the ground.

Oh so they could use Emergency Rations.

EMRATS are all but familiar with your target population (and taste like crap, and have a ... different look to them). Also, while they can be dropped on yellow pouches on a small parachute, if the chute fails they will reach terminal velocity and could break a bone or kill. That is why they are mostly used in very isolated areas (like Afghanistan), or as a very last resort. If they cannot get the situation stabilized enough where they can start doing ground distribution they just might, but we are not there yet.

Why does this thing about taste, and look matter? I mean you will eat if hungry enough right? WRONG. And you'd be amazed to know that Logistics also has to consider this little factoid in the food distributed to locals.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7469383

It is a fair question.

[C_Lawyer09]

12. I think airdrop is going to come into play ASAP

May be a regional aircraft or crew resource drain with current world events. I think some stuff could be sent en-route from Hunter Army Airfield in GA, fairly quickly. I know there is a lot of capability, if the AC and air crews are available.

[nadinbrzezinski]

21. If they do that, it will be EMRATS on chutes

nobody is going to drop a pallet, the closest they will get is choppers.

It is the geography... as well as LZ or DZ safety.

[C_Lawyer09]

25. I was thinking about Container Delivery Systems

Appx. 1,500 lbs. dropped with a G12 cargo chute. That way it wouldn't be a type V platform scenario, where a lot of people got hurt like in Somalia. Just spit balling though. You sound like you know more than me. I enjoyed your input.

[nadinbrzezinski]

26. No space on the ground.

When we wrote the plans for Tijuana we talked about that with both the Mexican AF and the Navy...

After they took us on a little training jaunt (and soaked us) with a low drop with a training load wiht water and rice (they made their point) due to the local conditions of the ciudades perdidad, which look a lot like the geography here, they said that the most they would risk would be a helo drop, ONLY if we and the military secured and cleared the ground and vertical net systems.

Yeah Somalia taught a lot of people around the world why you don't do that!!!

That geography is so damn bad that even moving some of the wider heavy equipment will be bad.

Hell we had one square rig (Type III) and we never sent it to those neighborhoods. It simply could not penetrate the terrain, the roads were that narrow.

Hell a few times we used civi four by fours to get EMTs to scenes...

[napi21]

17. Heard a discussion about that yesterday. Air dropps need a

large open field so the stuff doesn't hurt anyone on the ground. There are no open fields in or near there. The other thing that was discussed was that there's a very large abount of damage to the items being dropped due to impact. Combine those two thing together and it just can't be done in this case.

The guy explaining all this was from a military batallion that does air drops when & where they can be done. I have no reason to doubt him.

[blondeatlast]

18. Dropping thousand pound provisions on a city where people are trapped.

Yeah, that's a SWELL idea.

JEEZUZ.

[nadinbrzezinski]

23. By the way feel free to ask questions on this

I did train for this and ran a few of these messes... much smaller mind you, for the Mexican Red Cross.

My frustration is not being able to do it any more.

[quiller4]

27. According to what I read last night, there had been 4 air drops yesterday.

[nadinbrzezinski]

28. No they have not

here is your link

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60E49820100115?type=politicsNews

And there are good reasons for that by the way.

[Dappleganger]

8. Thanks for the post.

#4 is especially noted.

[C_Lawyer09]

9. Masterful Breakdown

I've been involved in several relief missions over the years, and so far I'm pretty impressed with the evolution of this one. I'm wondering if the KC-135 Refuelers have adapters or could some be retrofitted? If not this might be something that should be looked into for future reference. That would definitely be a plus for NATO and UN missions down the road. I'm also wondering since the airport is saturated, how many CH-47's, and/or 53's are on station in and around S. Florida, Macdill, Hurlburt, etc. Seems like, at least temporatily sling load ops might come in handy, as would fast box or container delivery system/mass supply drops from KC130 or C-17 aircraft if available. Really well organized and terrific response!

[nadinbrzezinski]

16. Add to that the International Airport in Merida

and the Mexican AF opened one of its AF bases in Campache... they fly both C-130s and Antonovs, so conceivably they could even do some emergency work on both. (They also fly a few smaller Spanish and Israeli planes... and now that I think about it, if they are still flying the Merkava, if they have operational range don't be too shocked if they are asked. Very short landing and takeoff)

What has impressed me the most, which is not the story on the news, but educated eyes can see it... is the international coordination... I just had to go look for different media from different countries. But the incredible coordination is more than just impressive.

[Tumbulu]

13. Yes, it takes time and that has to be so hard on everyone (nt)

[TornadoTN]

14. BBC report just said that things were picking up dramatically

The reporter was really upbeat about the speed at which things were moving now. While far from ideal, it seems that aid is getting out and rescue teams are able to operate.

A long way to go to be sure, but I think we'll see things improve in terms of aid flow.

[nadinbrzezinski]

19. That's the diffference a few heavy lift choppers can do

[NoPasaran]

15. Thanks for this and other threads where you've explained the logistics of this operation

[nadinbrzezinski]

20. Oh you welcome

my personal frustration is NOT doing it.

Just can't any more, so I do what I can, which is education.

[monmouth]

22. What a wonderful and informative OP. I understand so much more

than I did. Many thanks.

[nadinbrzezinski]

24. Oh you welcome

I just scour news media from all over north America and beyond. And try to explain some of these things... part of the battle is education.

[nadinbrzezinski]

29. Kick

[MadMaddie]

30. Great summary my friend!

[nadinbrzezinski]

37. Thanks ...

Trust me, once you start doing this for real, it comes down to at times the theory does not apply.

[MicaelS]

31. Excellent post thank you!

With our modern, always on society, people fail to realize the fact that logistics still drives events. It takes professionals like yourself to remind us of that fact.

[ddeclue]

32. This is a vast oversimplification of reality.

There is no need for any decent sized aircraft to refuel in Haiti at all. Any decent military cargo plane built since World War II could round trip it from Miami to Port au Prince without a re-fuel. I'm sure there would be no objection to international aid flights refueling in either Miami, the Bahamas, Cuba or Venezuela as necessary.

And no it should NOT take 72 hours to get a ship from Miami to Haiti - this isn't Indonesia - unless it were moving at 5 knots. It shouldn't take that long for ships coming from Norfolk for that matter.

72 hours is an insanely long amount of time to get people on the ground helping for a place that is an hour's plane ride from Orlando Florida. The simple fact is that the people who are trapped under concrete will have long since died. Moreover you really can't expect people living on $1/day to have a giant stash of MRE's and bottled water and camping gear to "rough it" until help arrives - that's simply blaming the victims.

They need help NOW.

[nadinbrzezinski]

33. Yes, they do

It has to do with navigation hazards on the way and yes physics.

And yes planes could make the trip, and planes early on did make the trip, and planes are now being diverted to Caicos, DR, Mexico and US... and there are refuelers in the air.

And yes it takes that long to get from Norfolk... now to the Comfort, they are just getting her ready to leave... cruise speed is 12 knots and it will take her almost four days... and no, they will not go all the way at flank.

Just asked, hubby since he is USN Retired, and he did this navigation thing for oh 21 years... 25 if count Merchant Marine.

I know it is all kinds of not making sense since it is that much faster to fly.

:-)

[ddeclue]

34. I'm a licensed pilot and aerospace engineer and can do the math.

it may take the Comfort that long but most U.S. Navy ships travel much faster than 12 knots - most of them you could water ski behind.

I object to your notion that mid air refueling is necessary. This is NOT some remote island in the middle of the Pacific, it is very close to Cuba, the D.R., Puerto Rico, Venezuela, the Bahamas, Florida, and many Carribean islands. It is possible for me to fly there in a single engine Cessna 172 if I go through the Bahamas.

[nadinbrzezinski]

35. That is why the Carrier left her escorts behind

Which speaks at how safe they feel, but the escorts cannot really keep up and will take a little longer to get there.

No skin of mine is off... they do not travel as fast as a plane... and YOU KNOW IT.

[nadinbrzezinski]

36. Kick and one small update on this

1.- The are now deploying scouts to handle secondary strips.

I still doubt the Seabees will do that, the AF has personnel to handle that, using aluminum strips

2.- I was wrong, civilian aircraft are coming in, but the FAA released a warning, have at least an hour of fuel and there is no fuel on the ground. Again, military craft can, if need be... get to a refueler, civilian craft can't

Oh and really, time distance is at play here.

Perhaps it is our way of looking at life and going to the store and getting your I-POD, realize that IPOD got to you through a logistics chain and it took two weeks to get to the store. So logistics is behind everything you do, and in disasters and war... it is critical.

[jaxx]

38. Kick

[nadinbrzezinski]

39. kick