Originally Posted By utahjosh My boss lived in Haiti for a couple of years as a missionary 20 years ago. He's maintained contacts there, and in fact visited last year. He said, "I was in Haiti last year and know that they hadn't recovered hardly at all from the Hurricane/floods. Now this. We in the United States have no concept of their level of poverty. It will be so hard to recover as they have no real infrastructure or heavy equipment needed. Hopefully, that will be sent, but the level of death and disease. Oh, so hard to imagine. They need our prayers and our support."
Originally Posted By velo yes, the potential for disease is staggering. Does anyone know if the US Navy is still stationed in the Carribean? Years ago, we used to see them patrolling near Puerto Rico/Virgin Islands - altho this was before Middle East crises. If they were still there, they could possibly be deployed to help?
Originally Posted By DAR ^^^ I would imagine a few ships would be in the area, though William or Sport Goofy might know better. I said this earlier but my concern is will the relief get to the citizens.
Originally Posted By BlueDevilSF >>Does anyone know if the US Navy is still stationed in the Carribean?<< I'm not sure about the Navy, but I'd heard on NPR that the Coast Guard was being dispatched to help.
Originally Posted By Sport Goofy There's not much regular Navy presence left in the Carribbean. I'm sure a few ships can be pulled out of Mayport, FL or maybe from a SOUTHCOM deployment, but the numbers will be less than a half-dozen if even that can be achieved. All the bases in Puerto Rico were shut down years ago.
Originally Posted By Sara Tonin The Navy has two hospital ships Comfort and Mercy (one is east coast, one west coast). They usually send one or the other each year on humanitarian missions. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that whichever one is on the east coast (I get them mixed up but I think east coast is Comfort) will be "steaming in, and standing by to assist" within the next few days.
Originally Posted By Sara Tonin This morning we were talking and someone said that with this scale of devestation, perhaps we should just pick up survivors and bulldoze the place and redistribute the Haitians around the world.
Originally Posted By Sport Goofy << The Navy has two hospital ships Comfort and Mercy (one is east coast, one west coast). They usually send one or the other each year on humanitarian missions. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that whichever one is on the east coast (I get them mixed up but I think east coast is Comfort) will be "steaming in, and standing by to assist" within the next few days. >> I heard on the radio that they are going to try and mobilize the COMFORT. Unfortunately, nearly all of the medical personnal that would embark one of those ships are already over in Iraq or Afghanistan. They'll probably put together a skeleton crew and use the ships mostly for cargo and helicopter operations more than medical assistance. Whenever they have sent the hospital ships recently, it usually means a nearly complete evacuation of the navy medical hospitals in Portsmouth or San Diego since that's the only place they can get doctors and nurses. All health care at those hospitals seemingly grinds to a halt as a result.
Originally Posted By gurgitoy2 "This morning we were talking and someone said that with this scale of devestation, perhaps we should just pick up survivors and bulldoze the place and redistribute the Haitians around the world." Yeah, I don't know what can really be done to fix the country. With the level of deforestation and resource depletion, what is left for them to rebuild? The really sad thing, is that the island is shared with the Dominican Republic, and despite them feeling it too, there was little destruction. It just shows how really awful the situation in Haiti was. I just don't know if they can recover from these disasters one after the other. I hope the citizens can get the food & basic shelter they need though.
Originally Posted By Sara Tonin I don't think my co-worker was serious but...it just seems these poor people can't catch a break...and what would be a solution for them? I happen to work at NMCSD and every summer they raid the clinics for docs for the humanitarian missions...makes you wonder how much basic medical care these folks actually get...we send (at least from our department) laser trained dermatogists and dermatopathologists to do physicals. And one of the dr's that went year before last commented that on a lot of these little pacific islands the populations are so small that they see lots of genetic anomalies because the gene pool is so tiny...and there's nothing they can really do because they are there for a few days and move on to the next little island. They get there examine and diagnose these people and then they have very limited pharmaceuticals and no way to say treat someone long term for diabetes or high blood pressure.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder "This morning we were talking and someone said that with this scale of devestation, perhaps we should just pick up survivors and bulldoze the place and redistribute the Haitians around the world." Sounds flippant at first, but really, not a solution that should be ruled out. The country has essentially been destroyed. Nature has come in and dropped its version of about 20 nuclear bombs. I've read that the only thing that works is the airport. Everything else is gone. A group from Doctors Without Borders is missing. The hospitals were destroyed. The prison was knocked down, and the prisoners escaped. The presidential palace is rubble along with the U.N. Mission. Overall, the country has been reduced to one big, soon to be rotting garbage dump littered with hundreds of thousands of corpses. Other countries are going to have to come in and police the state before too long, because they don't much of them left, either. The chances of wide scale rapes, assaults, lootings, spread of disease, all that, is going to increase exponentially if countries don't act very soon.
Originally Posted By Sport Goofy << Other countries are going to have to come in and police the state before too long, because they don't much of them left, either. >> It wouldn't surprise me if the U.S. ended up occupying Haiti and acting as the de facto government for some period of time. It happened at the beginning of the 20th century. We intervened in the 90s. It's not an idea without precedent.
Originally Posted By Labuda I have to say I'm a bit shocked that I think writing off the entire country and redistributing the population may be a good idea. Part of me says it's just wrong, wrong, wrong, but another part of me is aware of how poor Haiti is and has seen the pictures of the damage... it's just a very sad situation and I feel so very bad that I can't feasibly do more than send a little money to help.
Originally Posted By dshyates "I said this earlier but my concern is will the relief get to the citizens." Given what has happened in other areas like Somalia I think this COULD be a valid concern, but the way that the relief effort in Haiti is happening, it is not a concern at all. The relief groups are taking it straight to the people. And the Haitian government really no longer exists. Which is good and bad. Good in the fact that they can't interfere with the relief effort. Bad in that if they were inclined to help the people they are not in a position to even help with distributing food and water.
Originally Posted By mawnck >>Go to Hell, Pat Robertson -- and the sooner the better. Your 'theological' nonsense is revolting. Don't speak for Haiti, and don't speak for God. Haiti is suffering a catastrophe and you offer silliness at best, and racism at the worst. Haiti was the first island in the Western hemisphere to overthrow slavery and white oppression -- this is what you call a pact with the Devil? God's heart is breaking with this tragedy, and ours should be too. You never had much credibility -- but now it is all gone. That is enough time spent on you. Let's get back to thinking how we can call upon all of the goodness in our traditions and in our country to help the people of Haiti.<< - Rev. Paul Raushenbush, Associate Dean of Religious Life and the Chapel at Princeton University <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-raushenbush/go-to-hell-pat-robertson_b_422397.html" target="_blank">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...397.html</a>
Originally Posted By mawnck >>Seems to me it's dangerous to postulate why any disaster happens. Even Jesus, when asked by his disciples about a tower that collapsed and killed 18 people, did not give a reason for the tragedy. Nor did God explain things to Job.<< <a href="http://washingtontimes.com/weblogs/belief-blog/2010/jan/13/about-pat-robertson-and-haiti/" target="_blank">http://washingtontimes.com/web...d-haiti/</a>
