Organization, Cooperation Were Keys to Haiti Relief Efforts

By JOHN C. MARCARIO, Assistant Editor

Navy leaders May 4 credited the success of the Haiti earthquake relief mission to interoperability and cooperation among military and internal partners.

The 7.0-magnitude earthquake Jan. 12, centered 16 miles from the capital city of Port-au-Prince, caused widespread damage and killed an estimated 230,000 people.

During a panel discussion at the Navy League Sea-Air-Space Exposition titled "Smart Power-Haiti," Rear Adm. Samuel Perez Jr., deputy director, joint interagency task force at U.S. Southern Command, said organization was key to the relief effort and complimented the U.S. military and its international partners.

"There are a tremendous number of assets out there that helped us succeed. The first one was a very clear form of command," Perez said.

Vice Adm. Adam M. Robinson Jr., Navy surgeon general and chief, bureau of medicine and surgery, said that prior to international aid arriving in Haiti the people there had little hope.

"In order to have hope people must have stability and they must have security. Those were the things that were lacking," Robinson said.

The Military Sealift Command hospital ship USNS Comfort, the national face of the response efforts, received a new patient every 6-8 minutes, Robinson said. The 1,000-bed ship has 10 operating rooms and was deployed from Jan. 20-March 10. It treated 871 patients and had 843 surgeries.

He also said the assistance he received from other agencies helped with the effectiveness of the mission.

"'To be effective in these types of situations we have to be integrated, we have to be collaborative and we have to be interoperable. Those are big words not usually used with disaster," Robinson said.

Rear Adm. Ted N. Branch, commander, Carrier Strike Group One, said the international Navy partnership was run smoothly because leaders were set up dictate each partner's role.

"We learned from these partner agencies and they learned from us," he said.

There was a lot of things done from a lot of different people, Branch added.

"It was a very uplifting thing," he said.

The Navy used high-speed ferries for the first time in Haiti. Huakai and Alakai originally were built to serve as passenger and vehicle ferries in Hawaii but were turned over to the Maritime Administration's custody when the ferry service company, Hawaii Superferry, went bankrupt in 2009.

The ships, which had been deactivated, were under operational control of the Military Sealift Command during Operation Unified Response.

The ferries were used mainly for high-speed transportation of vehicles and personnel from Jacksonville, Fla. to Haiti.

"It provided a convenient way to move people," said Rear. Adm. Mark Buzby, commander, Military Sealift Command, said.

Susan Reichle, deputy assistant administrator, bureau for democracy, conflict and humanitarian assistance at USAID, said logistics and interagency support were major lessons learned in Haiti.

"Logistics are the linchpin for the success," Reichle said.

She also said interagency support was vital.

"During those first days, we struggled to figure out the level of the impact," she said.

USAID was the lead government agency in Haiti.


05/04/10--NATIONAL HARBOR, MD.--Left to right: RDML Philip Greene, Jr, RDML Ted Branch, RDML Samuel Perez, Jr., RDML Mark Buzby, VADM Adam Robinson, and (not pictured) Susan Reichle of USAID speak at the Professional Development Seminar Panel: "Smart Power-Haiti" at the 2010 Navy League Sea-Air-Space Exposition at the Gaylord National. Photo by Lisa Nipp for SEA POWER