Logistics: Haiti's Lifeline

William B. Cassidy | Jan 14, 2010 3:49PM GMT

Logistics is both the most important factor and the biggest obstacle facing a massive international aid operation rushing emergency supplies to Haiti. The problem isn't getting goods to Haiti, but how to store and distribute them once they arrive.

The devestating earthquake destroyed much of what infrastructure Haiti had, complicating efforts to get food, water and medical supplies to survivors. As in the past, the disaster brought logistics to public attention, and the logistics industry is rising to the occasion.

National Public Radio detailed some of the problems in “Logistics a Challenge for Groups Trying to Aid Haiti.”

It singled out AmeriCares, which was planning to send 10 tons of medical supplies to Haiti from the U.S. and Europe — but wasn’t quite sure how to get them to the people who needed them in Port-au-Prince and other striken areas of the Caribbean nation.

The International Committee for the Red Cross is chartering aircraft to get emergency supplies, doctors and other relief workers on the ground — see "Haiti: ICRC Relief Effort Gathers Pace." One plane carried ICRC medical staff, the next will bring 40 tons of supplies.

Transport and logistics companies can help save lives.

The American Logistics Aid Network is marshaling support among U.S. transportation and logistics providers. Contact them if you can help — their Web site helps transport and logistics operators donate goods and services.

Keep track of logistics relief efforts in a special online report in our Maritime section. And if you're involved in relief efforts, let us know.

Contact William B. Cassidy at wcassidy@joc.com.

Please get someone from JoC on CNN or at least get CNN to read your website. They need to tell people, particularly Haitians and Haitian businesspeople about what is in the pipeline particularly the Marad ships for increasing capacity, including the petroleum vessel that can dispense from offshore. The petrol station owners need to plan for resupply and other people need to know the stations will bee resupplied. if necessary, the Haitian police can escort fuel tankers as they have in the past, but actually the threat appears to be minimal for commercial trucks, particularly tankers.

The relief organizations and other countries need to stop whining about the U.S. Military and get organized. Since 1974, I have worked for Catholic Relief Services, Save the Children, Lutheran World Relief, and directly with the Catholic Church in Southern Sudan. In a situation like this we would palletize our cargo to speed unloading and plane turnaround, and facilitate tracking and reduce losses. We would log dimensions and weight of the palletized and non-palletized cargo such as vehicles on a web site for booking and tracking. We would then preposition the cargo at the Santo Domingo airport as we did at Lokichoggio in Kenya for Southern Sudan. The cargo could then be brought into Port au Prince Airport on C-17s. With 77.5 tons times 100 C-17 rotations per day that could provide in 7,750 tons of lift per day, about 5 times the 1,500 tons that CRS is off loading from a barge in Port au Prince Harbor as I write. Requests that were turned down or schedule late on the web site could be moved by truck or driven into Haiti. Also, people would see that airlift had real limits and get behind the maritime and truck bridge programs.

This is logistics, not rocket science. Of course bureaucracies and people in these emotional situations make rockets look simple and predictable.

By the way, the WFP has some really professional and innovative communications and logistics people who could set this up the U.S. Military and control the interface to relief providers. The U.S. Military and the Haitian Govt. should be sure that Hatian businesses are given a reasonable share of capacity.

- By edresor on 1/19/10

Even without the earthquake, logistics in Haiti was a challenge. But now you have the devestation, chaos and no strategic planning to try and cope with the situation. You need to get a coordinated effort down in Haiti - all of the organizations who are bringing in aid of any kind need to get a committee together and do about three things: 1- set priorities for types of aid ie medicines, food, water, temporary shelter, clothing etc and establish a calender for them to be brought in 2- establish about 8 to 12 facilities around the Port au Prince area where the goods are needed - temporary warehousing facilities where deconsolidation and local distribution of the goods can take place, and it will likely take helicopters from the airport to the temporary facilities until roads can be cleared and trucks used 3- secure all of these areas, things have a way of disappearing in Haiti, use UN security forces and have agency representation at any distribution facility to ensure that the goods are given to the people in need, not government officials 4- use consolidation centers in the U.S. to make up "loads" for these distribution centers in Haiti, mixed loads of meds, food etc so that each payload delivers a % of needed goods and not swamp them with one or two products and nothing of something else needed.
All of this requires cooperation from all of these agencies to really create a master/strategic plan initially and then to tweak it as time moves on and better data is available on what is needed where. Maybe the U.S. military logistics units can help, or people like Americare can get logistical help. But without a plan, chaos will prevail and Haiti is chaotic enough without the earthquake. Someone has to step up and take charge in this and get a coordinated plan together. I would guess that volunteers could be gotten from the JOC readership for this effort.

- By Kingston4811 on 1/18/10