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Air Force airdrops 14,000 meals into Haiti

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — The Air Force airdropped more than 14,000 packaged meals and water supplies into Haiti’s capital Monday in an attempt to overcome severe supply bottlenecks, including a lack of fuel, that are still plaguing relief efforts.

The Pentagon had said previously it was hesitant to use airdrops because it could start riots among Haitians suffering from hunger since last week’s earthquake. Congestion at the Port-au-Prince airport prompted the reversal, said Lt. Col. Shawn Goodlett, of the Air Force Air Mobility Command.

“There is no other way” to effectively distribute aid right now, said Agron Ferati of International Medical Corps, a medical aid agency.

The United Nations said it had run out of fuel for trucks distributing aid, though more was on the way. Ferati warned violence could worsen unless Haitians see “immediate help.”

The U.S. military said progress was on the way. Soldiers worked to unload pallets of food and water at the airport, and Army medics were treating injured Haitians at clinics.

“The trickle [of aid] from a few days ago ... is about to be a fire hose,” said Maj. Brian Fickel, a military spokesman.

TROOPS MARK SAFE ZONES

Parachuting bundles of food and water into Haiti became viable for the first time Monday in part because there are enough troops there to identify a safe place to drop them, according to Air Force officers involved in planning the mission.

Airmen from the 437th Airlift Wing, based in Charleston, S.C., dropped 14,000 packaged meals and 14,000 quarts of water after troops had secured a landing zone, according to the Air Force. troops, workers from the U.S. Agency for International Development and other aid groups distributed the food and water.

The operation required identifying a safe place outside Port-au-Prince to push 2,000-pound bundles from the C-17 cargo jet.

“It’s going to kill somebody if it hits them,” said Goodlett.

The bundles of supplies are pushed out of the back of the C-17 from about 600 feet above the ground and drop at 25 feet per second.

“Collateral damage is a huge concern for us,” Goodlett said.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said last week that airdrops weren’t tried immediately after the earthquake because of concerns that inadequate security could lead to rioting. U.S. troops started arriving in larger numbers on Friday.

It’s unclear whether more airdrops will be required, said Air Force Col. John Rutkowski, who helped plan Monday’s mission. Troops were able to locate and secure “safe real estate” to drop the bundles, he said. They were delivered about 5 miles northeast of the airport, he said.

Rick Perera, a spokesman for CARE in Haiti, agreed with the need for security on the ground before dropping supplies.

“Airdropping on the ground with nobody to receive it can cause violence or even death and should be discouraged,” he said.

U.S. military aircraft and helicopters have airlifted 130,000 humanitarian daily rations, 70,000 bottles of water and 117 tents into Port-au-Prince since the earthquake devastated the country Jan. 12.

About 550,000 more daily rations are scheduled to be delivered in coming days, according to U.S. Southern Command.

Since Air Force personnel started coordinating the airport, it has handled about 100 flights a day, three times more than its normal capacity, the command said.

More help on way

Aid groups were setting up a tent camp on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince that could house 100,000 left homeless by the quake.

One major bottleneck has been the limited capacity of Port-au-Prince’s main seaport, which was severely damaged by the quake. A Navy salvage vessel arrived Monday and began working to identify and remove obstacles blocking the shipping channel, the military said in a statement.

Rigoberto Giron, a vice president for the relief agency CARE, said his organization is sending most aid using airplanes, which can carry only one or two shipping containers of goods at a time. The backlog on air shipments to Haiti is currently about a day, he said.

In contrast, Giron said, boats are capable of carrying “hundreds” of containers at once. Full use of the seaport “would make a very significant difference” in getting food, water and medicine into Haitians’ hands, he said.

Soldiers were guarding aid from looters, though such incidents have so far been “isolated,” said Rear Adm. Michael Rogers, director of intelligence for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Former president Bill Clinton arrived in Port-au-Prince with daughter Chelsea and helped unload cases of bottled water from their plane to a U.N. truck.

In Washington, President Obama made a visit to the headquarters of the Red Cross, which has raised $21 million through text messages.

“It just shows how generous the American people are,” Obama said.

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Contributing: David Jackson and Tom Vanden Brook in Washington; Oren Dorell and Brian Winter in McLean, Va.

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