29 January 2010

U.S. Officials Discuss Humanitarian Situation in Haiti

Provide update on distribution of aid, medical care, food and water

Teleconference Briefing on Relief Efforts in Haiti

Colonel Charles Heatherly
JTF-Haiti, Civil Affairs

Tim Callaghan
USAID DART Team Leader

Press Conference
Haiti
January 29, 2010

Ms. Jackson: Hi everyone, this is Gina Jackson from the Haiti Joint Information Center. Thanks for being on the call today.

We have two speakers for you today. We have Colonel Charles Heatherly of the Joint Task Force Civil Affairs; and we also have Tim Callaghan, our USAID DART Team Leader.

We’ll begin with Colonel Heatherly.

Colonel Heatherly: Good afternoon. I am Colonel Charles Heatherly. I am the JTF-Haiti J9. For those of you who are not familiar with the J [inaudible] system, I am a civil affairs officer by trait there. I have responsibility to the Commanding General in areas of humanitarian assistance, interagency coordination, as well as host nation coordination. This is extremely important in this environment as it is not kinetic but rather a disaster response situation.

We, myself and my staff, were on the ground very early on in this operation in order to begin the building of the military effort in support of our interagency partners as well as the government of Haiti.

Just as a couple of points of note at this time, we continue to expand and secure the distribution network. This is very much a logistical operation now. Meeting the needs of the people is paramount to us. Specifically in the medical arena, distribution of commodities, getting food and water to those people how are at risk. Finally, in everything we do, we think about building capacity. Those are kind of the three paramount goals that our commanding general has set here at JTF-Haiti.

As I mentioned, we do this through the government of Haiti. We’ve had several meetings with senior officials in the government of Haiti in order to get their guidelines, what their goals are, and to ensure that we are holistically partnering with them in every step of the way. We realize that we are guests in this country and what we want to leave when we depart is a system in place that has been reinforced by our presence, not one that will be degrading as we transition at some point in time in the future.

That being said, we have a couple of unique elements as part of this Joint Task Force that I’d like to mention briefly before we turn it over to Tim and then take questions.

The first is a non-doctrinal organization we call the Humanitarian Assistance Coordination Center. This element was stood up as we flowed into Haiti with the sole expressed purpose of coordinating across various stakeholders. Not only the multitude of interagency partners that we have in country, but also the UN, the UN Mission here in Haiti, and the 30-some-odd nations that are providing support as well as our non-governmental partners which are becoming a mainstay of the operation here in this country.

This organization is designed to collect information, to assess that information, disseminate the information back to all stakeholders in an unclassified form so everybody has visibility of that, as well as to give the commanding general and senior leaders for the JTF pinpoint targets where individuals or segments of the population are at risk so that we can focus those resources that we have in country in those areas.

I’ve got about 24 years in the business, and I have to tell the community out there that this has been one of the most tremendous outpourings of international support, as well as camaraderie amongst the interagency partners here in the U.S. government and our implementing partners and NGOs that I have ever had the fortune of participating in.

The international community has truly come to the aid of this country and supplies are flowing in every day. Originally by aircraft, and now by ship. We just have to continue to build on that distribution capacity in order to get the final mile accomplished which is all those resources to the Haitian populace.

One other unique attribute of what I’ve seen in the two weeks that I’ve been here now is the fact that we have coupled together many different agencies in a holistic approach to respond to this disaster. Everybody from our DART counterparts to FEMA to various segments of the U.S.-Joint Military Joint Staff. This is not the case normally. A chain of command is designated to handle certain catastrophes such as this, but this is a whole of government approach which has been very successful.

You can see this success as you walk down the street. I have the fortune of getting through Port-au-Prince, and while it’s not perfect at this time you see individuals out there holding their head high, dressed fairly well, cooking on the side of the street, lots of cars going up and down the road. So these are signs of recovery of this nation. I’m not sure if it hadn’t been such a holistic approach to this disaster if we would be there at this point in time, so I’m very pleased to report that.

With that being said, I’d like to turn it over to Tim Callaghan now to make a few opening remarks from the USAID side.

Mr. Callaghan: Thank you, Colonel.

I’d like to, again, my name is Tim Callaghan, the Disaster Assistance Response Team Leader for USAID. I’d like to reiterate a couple of points we just heard from the Colonel. I truly believe, having been on the ground now 17 days that the people of Haiti are incredibly resilient as they have faced many tragedies over the years, at least that I’ve been in the region.

We continue to review what the top priorities are in this emergency. As I’ve been on this call often in the past two weeks or so, as many of you know urban search and rescue was a top priority for a while. Obviously now we’ve moved into more of a recovery mode. I will say that the U.S. government has a small group of folks available to assist if required, but at this point it’s a small contingent. We were, again, able to be a part of 132 rescues the last few weeks which was just phenomenal work in the international community with our many partners.

Also what the Colonel said, obviously anything we do is based on the priorities that the government of Haiti sets. There are a couple of ways that that happens. Each morning at 8:00 a.m. there is a meeting with the Prime Minister where the U.S. Ambassador here and other people from the DART team attend to listen to what the government of Haiti maps out strategically for their way forward. On top of that, yesterday for example we were able to have a a meeting with President Preval, several members of the embassy and the DART team and the Ambassador, to discuss shelter. Obviously some of the key areas that we’re continuing to look at that the Colonel mentioned -- health, we’re looking at sanitation issues, but obviously shelter is a large area. We presented our shelter strategy and touched on pieces of shelter kits, plastic sheeting, thinking about things outside of tents. Obviously there are a lot of tents that are here in the pipeline, but we’re looking at other alternatives as well. We talked a lot about debris removal, we talked about opportunities to [inaudible], if you will, which the President had mentioned was very important to them.

We talked about activities that we are looking at for programs such as cash for work, which will help with the debris removal, which will be a very important recovery part.

I do want to emphasize as the Colonel mentioned, not only obviously do we work very closely with the government of Haiti and follow the priorities that they set, but we work incredibly closely, as we need to, to ensure no duplication of efforts with other donors who are bringing resources to the table.

With the United Nations we’re very active. We have disaster team members at all the cluster meetings. For those who don’t know, again, these are just the different sectors that the UN again manages. For example, for non-food items, the sector that is run by the International Organization of Migration, IOM; the Health sector, or cluster, sorry, is run by the Pan-American Health Organization. So when the U.S., when USAID brings in relief supplies, for example, we are bringing them and providing them to IOM. IOM is the lead cluster, is working with the other partners, the other NGOs and other groups to distribute them and have the pipeline go down in supplies to ensure that they’re getting them.

There are a lot of supplies coming in. There are tremendous challenges to make sure in a timely fashion that those supplies are being moved out. So we’re working there.

On our team, for example, we currently have six folks working just logistics. This is a tremendous effort where we have one person at the port, several people at the airport, we have one person at Promed which is the major health facility here to ensure as supplies are coming in, again, we are still in the process; the DART team is supporting disaster medical teams from HHS. The other point the Colonel correctly brought out is that on the U.S. government side in this response there’s been a major effort with a lot of players working incredibly hard coordinating well. We have, again, our colleagues from DoD, HHS (Health and Human Services). We have representatives from CDC, FEMA, among others. It’s a huge effort, a lot of coordination required, and a lot of different assets being brought to bear.

I know Commander, I think, Zimmerman from Health and Human Services, if I have the title correctly, was on one of the calls. We’re supporting with them the DART team, five what’s called Disaster Medical Assistance Teams, one surgical team. They remain on the ground. They remain spread out throughout the city providing medical services.

So we continue that effort. It is critical to constantly review what the critical areas are, and we will, as I mentioned earlier, search and rescue for the first two weeks was critical; that now has moved more into a recovery mode, so we’re now again adjusting, looking at what are the critical areas for things like shelter and health and so forth are at the top of our priority list. As we bring in supplies, as we bring in resources for grants -- again, we’re funding a lot of organizations in the country. AID is between Catholic Relief Service and World Vision, Samaritans First, and many others to carry out relief efforts. But obviously the one area we’re trying to move on quickly is removing debris which also can bring cash into people’s hands.

I’ll stop there. We are committed to continuing this effort into the future. I’m proud of not only working with all our colleagues in the U.S. government; it’s been a tremendous effort. But again, we’re all here and I think we all need to remember why we’re here, and that is to help the people of Haiti. I think as the Colonel correctly mentioned, there are signs of fuel tanks on the roads, lots of traffic, unfortunately, which is good news and bad news. The good news is there’s lots of traffic, people out, trucks going around; the bad news is traffic here is probably, it’s difficult. But again, it’s normal as it is I guess for Washington. But gas stations are open. We see people with their little shops on the side of the road, fresh bread, vegetables and so forth. Those are positive signs, and we will continue to support the many areas to help the people of Haiti move forward as quickly as we can.

Thank you very much.

Ms. Jackson: We’re ready for questions.

Question: [Karen Difocle].

I wondered, Tim Callaghan, first of all, if you could spell your name for us all. Also, if you could elaborate a bit on the cash for work. Has it already begun? How many people is it likely to affect? How long do you think it’s going to give jobs to these people who need them very much?

Mr. Callaghan: Callaghan is C-A-L-L-A-G-H-A-N. My first name is Tim.

Some of the activities have begun. I don’t have all the specifics for you right now, but some have begun. Again, especially in the area of debris removal. There are many different groups that we are looking at funding in this, but some of the groups have received agreements that have begun in that effort. The exact number, again, we will obviously be trying to report as much as we can, but at this point our efforts right now, we’ve committed approximately, I don’t have the figure in front of me, but approximately about $20 million to this effort. As I mentioned before, we have often in these sort of situations, it helps again, not only with cleaning up the city -- we’ve done this when there have been hurricanes and so forth, but in this case being able to clear debris is going to be critical to allow, again, the next phase of shelter and so forth.

There are a variety of non-governmental organizations, we have worked with them in the past, who have a lot of experience in this area. And I think we, again, we’ve started this effort and we will continue to look at are there other opportunities where we can do that.

The government, this was one of the areas that they put as their priority when we spoke to them. We’re also, obviously, working with our colleagues from other nations to encourage them to also support this area of cash award operations and so forth.

Question: [Mark Nathea].

Hi, thanks for taking the call. I had a quick question about flights of injured Haitian nationals to Florida. Our understanding is those have been canceled for the time being, I want to get a reason for that; and when those flights may resume. Thanks.

Ms. Jackson: We’ll have to get back to you on that.

Do you have the Haiti JIC email address?

Question: Can you give that to me please?

Ms. Jackson: HaitiJIC@USAID.gov

Question: Thanks.

Question: [Craig Murrow].

I was wondering if you could give me more details on the shelter. How many tents are coming in, more details on what the other options might be, what are the needs, if there are any figures on that.

Mr. Callaghan: What we’re proposing in talking to the government, we certainly recognize a lot of tents are coming in, but we encouraged President Preval yesterday to think outside the tent. We encouraged other options such as hosting. Obviously many people such as the ones transported outside Port-au-Prince will be staying in situations with relatives and families; we’ll be looking at trying to support that. We’ve done that before through non-government organizations. It can be a variety of economic support to help people who are taking in folks, individuals who have been impacted by the disaster.

Another aspect could be plastic sheeting. OSD or AID has plastic sheeting that is world renowned that can, again, be part of what we call a shelter kit to help people repair homes and so forth, along with other materials, whether it’s hammers, nails and so forth.

The other area that we’re supporting in this whole shelter piece, as I mentioned earlier, is debris removal.

So there’s a variety of different options that we’re looking at that we have shared with the government. I guess what’s most exciting to me is that the government is very supportive. We brought in a model of the shelter kit for the government today. We also at that meeting, we had representatives from IOM, International Organization of Migration. They’re the lead cluster for shelter. A lot of the other donors -- the Colonel mentioned this earlier. It is critical, this coordination piece, with other countries, other governments and NGOs. We have worked very hard with the shelters cluster, many of our other partners who will be bringing resources to the table, and at this point everybody is pretty much on board with the shelter strategy. So tents are part of it, but we’re looking at other alternatives outside of tents.

Question: [Cindy Racer].

This is for both the speakers. Do you think that the media in the U.S. is adequately and properly covering the story in Haiti, the recovery, as both of you are speaking about it?

Colonel Heatherly: How about if we give you a two-part answer here, both from myself and Tim.

I can tell you what I’m seeing on the ground here, and then what we see on CNN or Fox News.

I think the individuals here in Haiti are incredibly resilient. There is a natural pattern when a disaster occurs. Right now we have done the utmost to get through that first phase of the operation.

Now the individuals, we can tell by looking in their eyes and seeing them on the street, that they’re beginning to move on and they’re beginning to rebuild here in this country.

I don’t see that reflected on television or in the media back in the States. As such, I think the best option for the media is to come to those on the ground here that are actually doing the work, and get a holistic picture of what is occurring, the total relief effort, all of the agencies involved, and then report form a much more balanced perspective to inform the government.

The U.S. populous, and the world for that matter, should take pride in the fact that the size of the response to the Haitian people has been tremendous. And that being the case, if it can be done, it is being done by those here from our interagency colleagues to that search and rescue team on the ground, to the paratroopers from 2nd Brigade/82nd in Port-au-Prince. They are working feverishly, 20 hour days out there, to ensure that the recovery effort takes hold as fast as it possibly can.

Let me let Tim tell you his position.

Mr. Callaghan: We don’t really concentrate on what the media is reporting. We are here and we are dedicated to saving lives, eliminating suffering, and mitigating when we can the social economic impact of a disaster. We are focused on that. We are putting our resources into helping children. I was at an orphanage today, that there was not press, and that’s okay. But I can tell you the hundreds of children that were assisted, it made an impact.

I remember driving home from the Hotel Montana on Saturday and it was late. One of our drivers, who I apologized for that we were a little late coming home. He said, you are here to help us. Do not apologize. We are so thankful you’re here.

I think we’re so focused on helping the Haitian people. Obviously there are also many other citizens, especially in the search and rescue phase. Again, having been here for even just that part of it, the people involved in that were heroic. I’m not sure if that story’s been told.

I want to share one other story about that, that adds a lot of pride at least for me. I was at a rescue with colleagues of mine from AID with some Fairfax County Firefighters, and there were other teams there as well. But what I probably felt the most proud about was that there was a group, the Haitian search and rescue team that we work with were there. I cannot tell you how proud they were to be part of, they were in the lead there. And for me, again, again, there were no reporters there either. That’s okay. We’re here to save, we’re here to -- the woman was pulled out alive, after being trapped for I think it was nine or ten days. To see people clap -- There were no cameras, there were no interviews, and that’s what many of the people that we’re working with who have been working pretty much 24x7 for 17 days now, are doing.

Again, I’ve been in so many situations where people have been thankful. Obviously there’s a lot of need. Obviously there are a lot of challenges. We continue to work on that. But I’ve been proud to see the effort of my colleagues, the people in the interagency, but also how the people in the government of Haiti that we’ve been working with, and our colleagues from NGOs and the UN.

Question: [Greg Murrow].

I missed the beginning of the Colonel’s opening remarks, I apologize if you already stated this, but do you have numbers for the amount of troops on the ground involved in this effort?

Colonel Heatherly: Yes, I do. We’ve got approximately 6,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines on the ground here in Haiti and about another 10,000 afloat off the shore providing logistical resources, helping us with the humanitarian effort, and providing the enabling force necessary to support USAID, our interagency partners and the government of Haiti.

Operator: We have no other questions at this time from the phone lines.

Ms. Jackson: If that’s all, I’d like to thank everybody for calling in, and we’ll talk to you again soon. Thank you.