U.S. military forces are leading efforts to punch through sea, air and road bottlenecks slowing the delivery of food and supplies to earthquake-ravaged Haiti.
The USNS Grasp, a rescue and salvage vessel of the Navy’s Military Sealift Command, arrived Monday with Army divers to assess underwater obstacles and damage that have closed the seaport at Port-au-Prince. The vessel had been off the coast of Belize and diverted to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to refuel and collect food and relief supplies before heading to Haiti.
Air Force Gen. Douglas Fraser, commander of the U.S. Southern Command, said reopening the port is crucial. He said the first priorities were quickly reopening the Port-au-Prince airport and clearing an overland route from the neighboring Dominican Republic but scale of the disaster requires resumption of seaborne shipments.
“We’re getting supplies in through the air. But the airfield by itself will not sustain the long-term requirement because there are so many people in need,” Fraser told reporters at a Miami briefing. “That’s why we’re bringing in the capability in ships, why we’re looking at how we get supplies across the shore.”
Having visited Haiti only three months before the earthquake, Fraser said he knew before receiving damage reports that the logistical challenges would be immense. “We knew that there was a single airfield where we could use capacity,” he said. “We had a limited capacity, even when the port was running, of what the port could support.”
The 7.0-magnitude earthquake wrecked the port’s pier and toppled its container crane and two smaller cranes. The extent of the underwater damage won’t be known until divers can take a look....
