Thursday, December 30, 2004

Emergency/Disaster Response Basics

Since everyone seems to be only caring about how much money the US can spew at a problem, let's look at what a responsible agent does in an emergency.

First, you go to your emergency plan and begin implementing the details of that plan. Well, we'll skip that since there doesn't appear to be any planning in this case and even if there is, the scope of this disaster is probably beyond any planning that was deemed reasonable by these countries.

So, during and after the event you start evaluating the effects of the disaster. Scoping out the limits of where and who it has effected. What are the effects to those harmed? In this case, the areas were many small and medium island groups or long low level coast lines. The effects were huge levels of physical damage to all infrastructure including water and food sources, roads, and housing. Who was affected is literally everyone. They were effected by large numbers of dead and many injured.

Now you have a very large population in a zone of destruction that is huge they have little of no food and water supplies. The dead and the sea water are causing the spread of infectious disease.

Now that you know the basic physical situation you can evaluate the needs of those in the disaster zone. Food, Water, Medicine, Fuel, and Shelter are obvious. You also will need a means of delivering the aid. Planes, boats, ground transport. Of course, you also have to locate, coordinate and pay for these resources. Now that didn't take any time did it? Of course you can throw some of the basic necessities together without any assessment. But how do you get it there and how do you put it there once you arrive? No time needed for that.

Initial assessment teams arrive on site and provide infrastructure to allow for planes and other relief transport. The quicker this is done the sooner the relief aid will arrive.

Now you have the immediate relief supplies coming in and starting to distribute them.

Now you assess the long term needs and what has to be done to get them in place. This will include water processing, sanitation, and permanent housing. Providing provisions for building is a challenge, especially with the area over which these supplies will need to be spread. Then there is the other forms of infrastructure, such as farming and fishing equipment, tourist facilities, etc. But we aren't anywhere near this stage of the recovery.

With that simple description of what needs to be planned, why is there so much complaining about how long the US took to start providing money and then complaining about the amount being too little? The scope of the resources needed still haven't been scoped. The assessment teams have only been on the site for a couple of days and even they haven't been able to reach all of the areas effected.

Last count I believe total aid from Governments world wide is now over $300M. And I'd be surprised if a majority of it isn't just sitting around unused. Why? Because they haven't figured out where to use it. See the subject link for the World Health Organizations site. They estimate the need for $40M dollars for immediate health needs. And they even speak to the four day period having given them time to understand fully the scale of the problem.

Being impatient with the US for its timing (being first and ahead of the UN) is just foolish. Look at the news, the money provided is for the short term needs. We all know that the US has deep pockets and they will be opened again.

The thing that really bothers me though is that it seems the US is the only country being heavily criticized here. And worse, much too much of the criticism comes from our own press. No big surprise, they use the most distorted version of "facts" that they could find. Look at the NYT if you don't believe me. (Why do they only list our governments charitable giving and not all giving by the citizens of the country? Oh, because it doesn't fit in with your editorializing.)

Of course, the politico's are screeching again. Bush wasn't fast enough, didn't give enough. What a surprise.

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