The U.S. military’s Southern Command has conducted table top exercises every year since 2010 to prepare for another major earthquake like the one that devastated Haiti that year.
Lessons from those exercises, such as the need for a quick response, were employed this past weekend when a 7.2 magnitude earthquake hit the southwest region of the same Caribbean nation.
“The two situations are vastly different. We do a table top every year and we learn the lessons of 2010. And I don’t want to compare the two responses — I don’t think it does justice to the suffering that’s happening right now, nor the work that was done in 2010,” Adm. Craig Faller, commander of Southern Command, said in an interview with McClatchy on Tuesday.
“But speed getting eyes on the damage and getting people on the ground from USAID were two things that were important,” he said.
Southern Command deployed drones to surveil the damage, cutter ships with supplies and helicopters for emergency airlifts within 72 hours of the disaster. The commander is coordinating an international effort involving American, Jamaican, Dominican and Colombian disaster teams, launching from U.S., French and British ships.
But the circumstances around Saturday’s earthquake — centered on a region of the country that is difficult to access, less than two days before a tropical depression was set to hit — posed fresh challenges.
“Because of the storm, there was a loss of some period of assessment due to weather yesterday — we’re still in the assessment stage,” Faller said.
The death toll is over 1,900 according to the Haitian government, and U.S. aid officials have said it is expected to rise.
“We should get a new count in this evening, with still thousands missing and thousands of homes destroyed,” Faller said. “The location contributed in one way to logistics challenges, but in another way the population density has resulted in less loss of life thus far.”
The 2010 earthquake, which hit outside Port-au-Prince, led to an estimated 300,000 deaths.
SURGING U.S. ASSISTANCE
Faller said that a “zone of support” was being erected around the disaster site. A command center has been set up in Port-au-Prince that will be the base of operations for the newly established Joint Task Force-Haiti as well as the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Eight U.S. helicopters — three CH-47 Chinooks and five UH-60 Black Hawks — are currently prepositioned at Naval Station Guantanamo and will be operating each day out of Port-au-Prince. They are all on airlift missions, Faller said.
“The first requirement tomorrow will be lifting an NGO hospital and capability out into the ‘southern claw’ in support,” Faller said, referring to the area of impact which juts out into the sea with a single-lane road connecting it to the capital.
“Our focus is on life-saving support with lifts being the key,” he said.
Faller said that the U.S. military is monitoring the road for any disruptions to humanitarian convoys, but that so far, there have been only a few reports of looting. “We’re watching the road every day. We have assets in the air watching,” he said.
Additional U.S. military assets are on call.
The USS Arlington is on the way. The transport ship can be turned into a mobile medical platform with “a couple dozen” medical providers. While hospitals in the Haitian capital have some capacity to take in the wounded, local hospitals in the region are already full.
“We’re looking at additional heavy-lift packages — think bigger helicopters,” Faller said. “So we have them on a be-prepared-to posture if we get into this and assess that more would be needed for search and rescue.”
FORCE PROTECTION
All of those assets require a certain amount of “force protection” on the ground — but a major deployment of troops is not under consideration, he said.
“Every element we deploy with it has some level of force protection if needed,” Faller said. “So the question really is what’s the level of support to save lives and to support USAID, and all of it comes with a level of force protection.”
Faller did not say how many military personnel were engaging in force protection for the mission in Haiti.
“But sending troops in isn’t the mission. Saving lives is the mission, and then whatever we do – anything in the military – we bring in force protection,” he added. “There’s no plan to put big numbers of troops on the ground.”
The last time the United States sent troops to Haiti was in 2010.
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters that there were no plans to send troops to Haiti at this time.
“We’ve got U.S. Coast Guard elements, and Southcom has mobilized with logistical and other support to be able to provide the kind of emergency response that is necessary in a human tragedy and catastrophe like this,” Sullivan said earlier Tuesday. “There are no current plans to speak of to deploy U.S. military personnel to Haiti.”
The country has faced a “heightened” security situation since the July 7 assassination of its president, Jovenel Moïse, and the administration is coordinating closely with the Haitian National Police to ensure calm, a senior administration offical said.
Faller said he hoped that the compounding crises facing Haiti would encourage “good governance” in the country going forward.
“It just renews the energy and passion for a sustainable solution for the country,” Faller said. “The key is taking this and moving forward in the right way to build the right institutions and learn from the past. The people deserve it. They’re good people. They want a good future.”
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