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HAITI UPDATE: London Times: Haiti earthquake: a few more rescues, but aid still slow. ?Nobody c?

By Glenn Reynolds

HAITI UPDATE: London Times: Haiti earthquake: a few more rescues, but aid still slow. ?Nobody can go anywhere without security in the city. No aid workers can go anywhere without taking risks with security. That adds to the difficulty of delivering the aid because you not only have to have transport ? which is rare ? you also have to have some sort of security with you, or you are taking a risk. People are getting angry, people are getting hungry and thirsty.? This is sounding kind of familiar.

As I mentioned before, disaster relief isn’t like ordering a pizza. It’s hard to get aid into a place where the infrastructure has been wrecked and ordinary social order broken down. I’m seeing some people start to go after Obama on this in an obvious echo of the Katrina-based criticism of Bush. I understand the appeal of payback, but I don’t see any evidence that Obama has blown it here; this stuff is just hard. Of course, the press won’t go after him the way they went after Bush, but that’s a given.

UPDATE: Reader Kevin Greene writes:

Glenn I hope your readers are paying attention.

Granted, Haiti didn’t have a very robust infrastructure to begin with, nevertheless its experience should be an object lesson for every American: In a natural disaster, aid is probably not coming nearly as fast as you think it should. It isn’t coming as fast as you think it will. And aid isn’t coming as fast as you’re going to need it.

If you’re not prepared to go it on your own for at least a couple of weeks, with your own supplies of food and especially water and emergency medical supplies, then you probably deserve your fate. Those of us who survive will be all the better off in a significantly cleansed gene pool.

Might be a good time to link people to this … just as a reminder that the United States is also due some natural disasters of epic proportions.

Well, if the Yellowstone Caldera really blows, the only good preparation will be a trip to Australia — taken before it lets go. But this Haiti earthquake has had me thinking about the New Madrid fault, which could wreck things across a very large part of the United States. And, yeah, you need to be ready to look after yourself for at least a week, preferably two or three at a minimum.

Lots of disaster-preparedness resources here.

Full post as published by Instapundit.com on January 17, 2010 (boomark / email).