Real Time Example

[Pal334]

Benesse, I too have done extensive overseas travel. Here are a couple things I always did (being the paranoid old fart I am). This is of course in addition to the things Rick mentioned;
I kept my passport, list of important phone #s in one of those "pouch thingies" around my neck when I slept.

Also had a map of the city I was in with important things marked (US and friendy embassies) . Is a boredoom killing distraction doing the markings.

Kept a pair of slip on sneakers with a bottle of water (or soda if water was not available) inside one sneaker next to the bed.

And had a mini BOB from a shopping bag nearby with whatever junk food or snacks were available.

Needless to say I have always been a paranoid traveler, mostly do to my line of work, but these preparations would go a long way to mitigate the initial impact of an emergency while traveling overseas

[BENESSE]

All good points, Rick & Pal.
I too have always been a nervous and fairly well prepared traveler with the exception of keeping the most important stuff within an arms reach.
It would be in the room, most likely in the safe unless I was going out. But in retrospect, keeping the passport, cred. cards and money in the safe while I slept made no sense really. I like the idea of a pouch thingie around the neck.

[Rick]

There is a gal that used to live about 8 miles from me that is now a missionary in Haiti. A mutual friend sent me an email she received from her. It broke down the first three days nearly hour by hour. Her parents arrived in Haiti a couple of hours before the quake. She talked about utilizing the swimming pool at the airport hotel for water. Everyone trying to either treat the injured or help rescue someone trapped in debris. She also said they began burning bodies on the second day. I don't understand that aspect of it but that's what happened.

I watched 60 minutes tonight and they were loading bodies with a front end loader and dumping them in the back of dump trucks. Pretty sick.

[aflineman]

Funny, the reporter I saw on CNN was the one saying we were sending the hatians expired MRE's. That's a born on date not an expiration date! I am getting ready to get on a plane to Haiti and don't appreciate idiots stirring up more trouble for me than I already had to deal with.

The Navy is already there producing water from their onboard desalination plants and the Air Force is on the way with a bunch of ROWPU's (really big water filters for those that don't know). Once the distribution process is figured out we will be able to keep quite a few peoples hydrated indefinitely, and that is exactly how long I will be there....indefinitely.

Good luck man. Take care of yourself. Indefinite ETS, I remember those days.
The army had a nice system for packaging water from the ROWPU. It was put it in little bags that were about 1 liter. First time I ran into them was Hurricane Mitch in Guatemala. Very handy system for distribution. I think they had contractors running it. Hopefully they have something like it in Haiti. It would make life somewhat easier.

[Pal334]

I find this very disturbing and totaly unacceptable!!!!

The only functioning field hospital in Haiti is run by the Isrealis. They had to come from across the globe and they are up, running and doing surgeries. Where are our (U.S. )military hospitals?

People are dying while the Bureaucrats putz around

[Rick]

The 60 minutes segment showed American doctors in a make shift hospital amputating a kids leg with a hack saw. That's all they had. They didn't even have alcohol because they had run out.

[Pal334]

And this is DAY 6!!!!

A total failure!!! WHy are they not allowing the US military medics with a squad of riflemen to disperse out into the communities to provide at least the rudiments of care. I would guess that would be at least 100 small clinics up and running with in hours.

[Rick]

You might find it interesting that the U.S. troops on the ground are carrying weapons but have NOT been issued ammo. Why carry extra weight if it is of no value? Maybe that 72 hour bag should be a 144 hour bag?!

[Pal334]

You might find it interesting that the U.S. troops on the ground are carrying weapons but have NOT been issued ammo. Why carry extra weight if it is of no value? Maybe that 72 hour bag should be a 144 hour bag?!

That is typical Army, empty weapons. In the US Air Force, if you carry a weapon on duty , it must be loaded, or live ammo in possession of the carrier. What is the point of not having ammo? If there is no threat, stack arms in a secure location and get them to work.

[Rick]

That information was courtesy of the 60 minutes show last night.

[Pal334]

THe Israelis are even setting up clinics away from their hospital setup. Number of US Field Hospitals open to date? NONE!!!!! This such an embarassment

[Batch]

I have a friend that is a former Marine (I know and save it).

He said that when he was issued mags for guard duty he was given three or two with all blanks and one with 3 or 5 live rounds. He got the live rounds.

If you can't trust your soldiers with live rounds blame the instruction.

[BENESSE]

THe Israelis are even setting up clinics away from their hospital setup. Number of US Field Hospitals open to date? NONE!!!!! This such an embarassment

There's much we can learn from the Israelis--from homeland security to getting stuff accomplished efficiently.
They're even like our bff, so don't understand what's the big deal.

[Batch]

They're even like our bff, so don't understand what's the big deal.

Wouldn't bet on that. From its modern inception Israel has shown a ruthless disregard for anyone's interest but her own.

The US may be Israels biggest ally. But, that is not reciprocated.

[Pal334]

Now is the stage that can and will have long term impact.

"Many victims could die from wounds that under normal circumstances would be easily treatable; a lack of food and clean water raises concerns over disease outbreaks. And people who were getting treatment for HIV and other chronic diseases no longer have access to care."

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americ...ex.html?hpt=T2

This may be the time when you should have tried to absent yourself from a major population area, to avoid any empidemics. At this point, the average human will be sufficiently weakened that an out break of the good old fashioned flu could decimate a community.

[Rick]

I saw on the news tonight one Chinese relief plane tied up the runway for two hours to do photo ops. Hello?!

[aflineman]

That is typical Army, empty weapons. In the US Air Force, if you carry a weapon on duty , it must be loaded, or live ammo in possession of the carrier. What is the point of not having ammo? If there is no threat, stack arms in a secure location and get them to work.

That is how it was with us down there. Army=empty weapons, Air Force=loaded weapons. Didn't make sense to me, but we didn't have as many problems with crowds and people stealing from us as the Army did.

BTW, my Avatar was taken in Haiti as I was providing armed overwatch for an Army unit that was having problems. The Haitians learned to respect the "red hats" as they called us. Between building stuff, feeding folks, and not putting up with crap, they didn't mess with us to much.

[BENESSE]

Wouldn't bet on that. From its modern inception Israel has shown a ruthless disregard for anyone's interest but her own.

The US may be Israels biggest ally. But, that is not reciprocated.

Whether that's true or not isn't germane to the point I was trying to make.
The point being, that we can learn a lot from Israel or any other country that has managed to do deal with challenges (we all share) much more successfully than we have.

[Batch]

Ok, I quoted and posted specifically to something regarding them being our bff.

It was probably said in jest. But, we have no BFFs in this world when it comes to war and putting lives on the line.

[Pal334]

Whether that's true or not isn't germane to the point I was trying to make.
The point being, that we can learn a lot from Israel or any other country that has managed to do deal with challenges (we all share) much more successfully than we have.

Excellent point. Why keep reinventing the wheel? Take a successful model from whatever the source and "tweak" it to your own needs.