In Haiti, U.S. Military Relief Effort Finally Finds Its Rhythm

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Jan. 22) --The scene at an overgrown former golf course on the outskirts of the quake-ravaged Haitian capital suggests that the U.S. military is finally getting the measure of how to provide organized and substantial relief to the city's starving and homeless.

Moments after a naval helicopter loaded with relief supplies touched down Thursday, soldiers on the ground scurried into action and lined up outside the aircraft to unload more than 1,000 pounds of live-saving nourishment.

The quick and efficient process was a far cry from the chaos at the beginning of the week. Within minutes the aircraft was emptied, airborne and on its way back to the nearby Port-au-Prince airport, the staging ground for the U.S. military's relief effort, while just over a grassy rise, hundreds of Haitians huddled in a tight pack waiting to receive their sustenance.

U.S. military officials said they learned their lesson at the start of the week-old relief effort following the quake: keep the hungry away from the food until it can be distributed in an orderly and secure fashion by soldiers on the ground.

"When we first got here, we were doing our best to get as much water and food to as many people as possible," said Rear Adm. Ted Branch aboard the USS Carl Vinson, an aircraft carrier floating miles off the Haitian coast and serving as the relief effort's central hub for a flotilla of U.S. naval ships here.

Initial drops were done by helicopters hovering just out of reach of quake victims, for fear they would rush the aircraft were it to land.

Early reports of midair food drops prompted criticism from some nongovernmental relief workers that weak or elderly Haitians weren't able to access much-needed food and water.

Despite the concerns and documented incidents of Haitians fighting over boxes of food, Branch said the relief effort is becoming more organized. "In many places, we'd land the helicopter and put the food out, and the Haitian people were organizing themselves," he said.

While Haitians remain desperate for more relief, the U.S. effort seems to be finally hitting its stride. The Carl Vinson is producing hundreds of thousands of gallons of desalinated water per day, filling five-gallon jerry cans at a rate of 36 seconds each, according to deck workers who timed their fastest efforts.

"Everyone's starting to get in a rhythm," said Raymond Gray, chief aviation boatman's mate on the Vinson. From a vantage point on the flight control deck, Gray monitors the comings and goings of helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft dropping off supplies and shuttling soldiers to the mainland. "It's very frustrating sometimes," he said, noting initial missteps in coordinating so many bodies and aircraft around the clock. "With the situation we're in, everyone just has to keep going."

Miscues and early complaints over aid delivery have been followed by a string of successes that appear, at least for now, to have prevented a widespread backlash of violence among the hungry. In a country prone to political chaos and unrest, concerns have been mounting that slow-going food and water distribution could prompt rioting.

More and more Haitians are leaving the crippled city in hopes of finding safety elsewhere, a trend that has forced the military to extend the parameters of its relief effort further outside the capital.

Planes are now dropping food on billowing parachutes into the eager arms of those who had fled Port-au-Prince amid concerns of continuing aftershocks. Still, most aid and medical assistance is being administered around the capital.

Hundreds of Haitians in Port-au-Prince have been treated for quake-related injuries at a field hospital set up by the University of Miami medical school.

Doctors there say that over the past five days they have treated about 400 patients at the facility. The work is grueling and the conditions crude. Doctors said they performed more than 100 amputations of limbs crushed when the city's poorly constructed homes and buildings toppled in the quake.

"We did the best we could with what we had," said Dr. James Guest, a neurosurgeon who worked at the hospital for four days before returning to Miami. "You get pretty burned out pretty quickly after dealing with what we saw there." Guest said a lack of oxygen forced doctors to use a local anesthetic when amputating shattered limbs. Some Haitians couldn't reconcile themselves with the loss and refused treatment. One woman, he said, died because she wouldn't allow doctors to remove her leg.

Horror stories of Haitian health care workers sawing off limbs with unsanitary instruments and no anesthesia signal the continuing need for more medical personnel in the country, a problem military officials say they are addressing.

Just offshore, the USS Comfort, a medical ship, has already treated hundreds of the wounded evacuated there.

"We are still very much in the assessment phase about how to bring assistance [to the Haitian people] and ease some of their suffering," said Branch, acknowledging it will take months for the fledgling military relief effort to make real inroads in easing Haitians' suffering.