An anonymous Canadian's report on the rescue efforts

[bcholmes]

Is this going to be another emergency response mess?

Rescue efforts were stalled today in Port-au-Prince with foreign rescue workers overwhelmed and unprepared to deal with impoverished people. Crews arrived with neither vehicles, nor gas, nor translators, nor guides.

Thus far, the rescue teams cluster at the high profile and safer walled sites and were literally afraid to enter the barrios. They gravitated to the sites where they had secure compounds and big buildings. Meanwhile, the neighbourhoods where the damage appears to be much wider, and anywhere there were loose crowds, they avoided. In the large sites, and in the nice neighbourhoods, and where the press can be found, there would be teams from every country imaginable. Dogs and extraction units with more arriving, yet with 90% or more of them just sitting around; meanwhile, in the poor neighbourhoods, awash in rubble, there was not a foreigner is sight.

News crews are looking for the story of desperate Haitians that are in hysterics. When in reality it is more often the Haitians that are acting calmly while the international community, the elite and politicians have melted down over the issue, and none seem to have the remotest idea what is going on.

— Haiti rescue effort targets wealthy, ignores poor: unsettling report from PaP

Comments

[wild_irises]

Emergency response is always and by definition a mess, and it's always going to be worse in places that the emergency responders have already fucked up by neglect and misuse. All you can do is appreciate people like Partners in Health and hope for the best.

Oh, and trust the Haitian people to take care of themselves without much help (and in fact with lots of hindrance), because they certainly know how.

[aquaeri]

Wow. What a mess. Don't get yourself too burnt out on all this, please. And if you haven't seen it, you might like this article on Avatar and Vodou.