Hats Off to logistics professionals

[Brat]

It seems like it is taking ages to get significant help for Haitians but after watching a presentation on CNN I get the picture. Unloading is clogging up the runways and any aircraft that lands must have enough fuel to go on to their next station as there is no aviation fuel.

The ships can't arrive too soon.

[kyounge1956]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brat It seems like it is taking ages to get significant help for Haitians but after watching a presentation on CNN I get the picture. Unloading is clogging up the runways and any aircraft that lands must have enough fuel to go on to their next station as there is no aviation fuel. The ships can't arrive too soon.

ISTM I also heard on one of the early reports that the air traffic control tower collapsed in the quake, which if accurate, adds even more difficulty to flying supplies and aid workers to the scene.

[Leonidas]

I gained an appreciation for logistics when they started making us do table exercise disaster drills (Think a model city on a huge room sized table with little buildings and model vehicles and whatnot - like a millionaire's model train set on steroids). Anyway, the exercise consists of you being the incident commander for some horrible thing that's happening in the city and you have to fix the problem, and all the resulting problems that happen, by directing the resources to where it needs to go. It's you, some radios (with people on the other end in another room role playing your counterparts) and some people who manipulate the model to illustrate where everything is going on.

They started us out on small stuff; riots, localized flooding, widespread power outages, etc. And eventually we built up to complete disasters like hurricanes, widespread armed insurrection with a power outage thrown in.

It teaches that logistics is the end-all and be-all of disaster response. It's not enough to have somebody willing to convoy a hundred trucks of food and water. You have to know what route is safe, identify a location for them to unload, provide shelter, fuel, food, water and protection for the people driving the trucks. You have to identify means of communication with them once they leave wherever they're coming from. And the list just keeps going on.

And like in real life, in the exercises there were always little gotcha's to mess with your mind. The radios go dead because the generator died. Or your fuel supply got hijacked and destroyed by some rioters. Or the one that made me fail one scenario because one of the role players decided to assert control over my incoming fire/rescue folks from other cities and direct them to all the wrong places.

Before they could start landing supplies in Haiti somebody had to fly in and set up communications and radar so the planes could land safely. Somebody had to identify unloading gear and space, temporary storage, a disbursing center, and security. Then they could start bringing in planes while someone else started working on where to send the stuff, how to get it there (Haiti's infrastructure is mostly dirt roads) keep the loads secure, keep the distribution centers secure, etc.

The thing for the average person to take from all of this is that unless it's a little bitty disaster in a small area, the chances of serious assistance coming to you within less than 72 hours is generally zero, nada and zip. Hurricanes, earthquakes, massive floods, basically anything that overwhelms your local responders, is going to be a huge logistical nightmare. You need to be able to provide your own food, water and shelter for at least three days.

[Khan]

Ohio Task Force One Awaits Deployment - News Story - WHIO Dayton

WPAFB: Ohio Task Force 1 Headed To Haiti - Video - WHIO Dayton

[Leonidas]

Good examples of logistics problem from those articles Khan posted. "Your airplane is too big to land here", "We're overcrowded and there's no room for your plane", and "Do you guys have your malaria pills?"

Quote:

OHTF1 is still waiting for a plane to transport them to Haiti. The C-5's at WPAFB are too big to land at the Port-au-Prince airport, so OHFTF1 is waiting for a cargo plane from Dover, Delaware to pick them up. The rescue flight is complicated by the situation on the ground in Port-au-Prince, where there's no room for additional military or civilian aircraft and lack of fuel to get them airborne.

Quote:

Task Force One Spokesperson Scott Hall said, "Our doctors have a unique challenge, this is an area that can have malaria and other things that we don't deal with on a domestic deployment."

[Khan]

The Logistician
Logisticians are a sad and embittered race of men who are very much in demand in war, and who sink resentfully into obscurity in peace. They deal only in facts, but must work for men who merchant in theories. They emerge during war because war is very much a fact. They disappear in peace because peace is mostly theory. The people who merchant in theories, and who employ logisticians in war and ignore them in peace, are generals.

Generals are a happy blessed race who radiate confidence and power. They feed only on ambrosia and drink only nectar. In peace, they stride confidently and can invade a world simply by sweeping their hands grandly over a map, point their fingers decisively up trrain corridors, and blocking defiles and obsticles with the sides of their hands. In war, they must stride more slowly because each general has a logistician riding on his back and he knows that, at any moment, the logistician may lean forward and whisper: "No, you can't do that." Generals fear logisticians in war and, in peace, generals try to forget logisticians.

Romping along beside generals are strategists and tacticians. Logisticians despise strategists and tacticians. Strategists and tacticians do not know about logisticians until they grow up to be generals--which they usually do.

Sometimes a logistician becomes a general. If he does, he must associate with generals whom he hates; he has a retinue of strategists and tacticians whom he despises; and, on his back, is a logistician whom he fears. This is why logisticians who become generals always have ulcers and cannot eat their ambrosia.

Unknown Author

[samclem]

A short digression: Taking a C-5 into Port au Prince or any other Haitian airfield is about the only thing that could make the situation in that place worse than it is now.

It is a wonderful airplane in many ways--huge, it carries 36 military pallets (more than any other aircraft in the US/NATO military inventory) , technically capable of landing on a dirt airstrip (ha!). But the plane breaks very often. And having a giant thing like that broken on the precious ramp space there would be a giant hindrance. If it should break on the runway and shut down the field for hours while they try to tow it, that would be worse.

The C-5 landing gear is especially complex (28 wheels, struts that allow the plane to "kneel" so cargo can easily roll on and off through the nose and tail doors, etc). It is especially prone to failure. Old Joke: A Russian intel analyst is looking at an aerial photograph of two C-5s at an airfield. One of the aircraft is up on jacks being repaired. What can he conclude? Answer: That airfield only has one set of jacks.


"Amateurs talk strategy; professionals talk logistics"
-- Attributed to Gen Omar Bradley

[Khan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by samclem A short digression: Taking a C-5 into Port au Prince or any other Haitian airfield is about the only thing that could make the situation in that place worse than it is now. It is a wonderful airplane in many ways--huge, it carries 36 military pallets (more than any other aircraft in the US/NATO military inventory) , technically capable of landing on a dirt airstrip (ha!). But the plane breaks very often. And having a giant thing like that broken on the precious ramp space there would be a giant hindrance. If it should break on the runway and shut down the field for hours while they try to tow it, that would be worse. The C-5 landing gear is especially complex (28 wheels, struts that allow the plane to "kneel" so cargo can easily roll on and off through the nose and tail doors, etc). It is especially prone to failure. Old Joke: A Russian intel analyst is looking at an aerial photograph of two C-5s at an airfield. One of the aircraft is up on jacks being repaired. What can he conclude? Answer: That airfield only has one set of jacks. "Amateurs talk strategy; professionals talk logistics" -- Attributed to Gen Omar Bradley

I spent ~20 years working with the logistics folks with USAF. Logistics folks know you can only deal with reality.

[Brat]

An aircraft carrier left Bremerton yesterday, it didn't look like a planned deployment as there wasn't the usual parade of Seamen on deck. My gut says that the Navy is shifting boats around as a result of the needs in Haiti.