Floating Cities

[realFedUp]

Haiti could be helped by a floating city or large cruise ship
docking there for the time it takes to clear the rubble, rebuild
with pre-fab housing etc. A lot of the anger about the cruise
ship docking just for the shipboard tourists, aside from the
stupidity of the situation, is that a ship that could house,
feed, hospitalize the Haitians is a viable answer.

Figure out the costs, get the ship or ships docked.
Move people out to safety and security. Clear the
rubble, cremate the dead, rebuild with pre-fab housing
first.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

1. GREAT suggestion! They used cruise ships for a while with Katrina. nt

[realFedUp]

2. Yes, this is a no-brainer.

Especially during earthquakes, ships work.

[Ian David]

5. IIRC, that didn't work out very well.

The cruise lines housed first responders and made a huge profit on it by charging a LOT of money.

[realFedUp]

6. and with that knowledge....

maybe we can learn from that and make
better arrangements.

I think George Clooney, alone, can probably
rent a ship for a time...howabout anyone donating
to rent that ship for a year or so? Hey, maybe
you get name on a website for donating.

[BeFree]

3. eh

There is plenty of open land on Haiti. the problem is only a few rich people own it. We should just take it from them and build new towns connected by mass transit.

[realFedUp]

4. but in the meantime....

this is a very viable solution.

[BeFree]

9. well

considering what a horrific mess it is and that 1.5 million people are homeless hell yeah.

I was just thinking past that. You're right, this could be done in a week or two and help the most people the fastest.

[realFedUp]

15. Yes, of course, this isn't the long term solution...n/t

[Zywiec]

7. "We should just take it from them"

Are you Haitian?

:shrug:

[DaveinJapan]

8. Three words that say a million things at once. Kudos!

[BeFree]

10. we're all Haitians

we should take the land back across the world. But we won't. So we'll suffer. Like Haitians have, for too long.

[realFedUp]

17. I don't think anyone here posted that....

We're just trying to help.

[FarCenter]

11. 2 million homeless / 10,000 per ship = 200 cruise ships

I don't think there are that many.

[realFedUp]

13. Good point and....

You can do what you can at this point. I'm surprised
by the cynical responses to this suggestion.
It's one viable suggestion that can help while
earthquakes continue, people are dead and dying
and need a safe and secure place to live, eat,
recover, mobilize.

This is an answer, not for all, but for the large city.

[BeFree]

16. heh

There are, I hear, a lot of empty motel rooms in Florida.
Cruise the full ship up there and let the people free.

As Haiti gets rebuilt, take them home. Simple.
Folks don't like simple, tho. Eh?

[realFedUp]

18. Read this morning about Gitmo having lots of space....

Why isn't that sitting more prettily to me??!!

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

12. Typical cruise ships only hold about 2000-4000 people.

And the cost is well over $500M just to build, let alone operational one of these massive ships. You would need a FLEET of 400+ cruise liners to house the 1M+ people in the port au prince area alone. That's 200 Billion dollars worth of cruise liners that have yet to actually be built. And then what do you do with hundreds of cruiseliners a couple years later? Terrible idea.

How about this: you stick to blogging/posting on teh interwebz and let professionals stick to planning disaster relief.

[realFedUp]

14. Another cyncial poster

Granted this isn't the only suggestion or answer,
but it would help in the meantime.

We can all stick to blogging here, can't we or we
can try and help.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

22. Look, spending hundreds of billions on hundreds of cruise liners

that would likeley take months, maybe even years, to build versus just spending that time/money fixing thier infrastructure is a no brainer. People not capable of assisting with rebuilding either need to migrate to the rural areas or get temporary visas into other countries.

Bring tradesman and contractors to Haiti. Have them take on haitian apprentices and teach them basic tradesman and construction skills (concrete, ironworking, woodworking, building methods, etc...) while beginning to fix their infrastructure. Government reconstruction funds and world relief funds would cover all of this government labor. Every few months, you would be training LOADS of Haitians to go out and teach others. Haitians could learn and repair structures at an exponential rate with the right government enabling programs in place and everyone training apprentices. The whole "teach a man to fish" concept needs to happen. Involving the Haitian people with a grassroots effort would greatly speed the reconstruction and leave them with skills and jobs of their own.

In the mean time, mass shelters (think how the Superdome was used after Katrina) that can be constructed much faster and cheaper than cruise liners in the rural areas or in the open land. As homes, flats and apartments are rebuit in the city people will begin migrating back into the city in the future.

I do think cruiseliners could be useful for allowing mass migration to other countries or areas of the coastline. But as floating residences - there are hundred better uses for the time, money, and logistical palanning.

[lapfog_1]

19. You would need, at a minimum, somewhere between 500 and 1000

cruise ships to accommodate the 3 million refugees. And that would be with horrible overcrowding conditions onboard. And, you still have to figure out how to feed that many people.

Not saying it shouldn't be done with, say, 2 dozen cruise ships, that take the most serious cases (those serious injuries but not so serious as to be on the "Comfort" - the hospital ship that arrived yesterday).

BTW, none of the ships are "docked", the dock area in Port-au-Prince is not functional for some time to come. They can anchor in the harbor.

[realFedUp]

20. This has already been posted...this isn't the end all and be all suggestion.

Yes, not everyone can be moved...just as a floating hospital, it would
be valuable.

[realFedUp]

21. Certainly we have the knowledge and resources

to deal with crisis like these. We've used enough
of our resources just in Iraq and Afghanistan.

[lapfog_1]

23. There are currently 230 cruise ships in the world,

most of which are significantly smaller than the 3000 passenger megaships.

230 x 2000 = 460,000 with a moderate overcrowding. Maybe a million with massive overcrowding.

Not to mention that almost none of them are US flagged (possibly none of them at this point). Most are owned by foreign companies.

The crews would have to be paid, the companies reimbursed for the use of the ships. The bill would be huge.

A better use of resources is to purchase temporary housing for the refugees (tents, mostly) and pay them to clear the rubble and start rebuilding their own cities.