Tsunami Relief; a sense of the scale of the response and the disaster

Ideas, thoughts, and resources from the permanently curious.

Living

World

Politics

Tsunami Relief; a sense of the scale of the response and the disaster (1/5/05)

Note: An email I worked up shortly after the massive tsunami that hit SE Asia on 12/26/04:

Hi Everyone,

I came across an article describing the relief efforts for the recent tsunami and it occurred to me a lot of folks probably haven't been on an aircraft carrier or inside a C-130 to understand what's behind the numbers, and that it might be neat to try to "bring it home"...

Essentially, the US effort alone has taken the city of Concord, Mass. (airport and all), and shipped it to S. E. Asia, while still operating. Every person in the city works within the city, and if not in a support role like baking, barbers, etc., then is entirely devoted to the "mission" at hand. Concord is now powered by at least two nuclear reactors, and can produce over a million gallons of fresh-water a day, from seawater, and can feed itself on it's own supplies for roughly 3 months.

All the folks focusing on the mission have at their disposal a little over 100 airplanes and 100 helicopters. I don't mean F-16s like in Top Gun, which are certainly there but account for only about half of the airplanes. We're talking about planes much larger, like a C-130 Hercules, which can transport 42,000 pounds (i.e. everything in the local Stop and Shop) 2,000 miles (Boston to Denver) in 5 hours flat. If they need to go further, a KC-135 (read: C-130 x4 and full of fuel) can refuel it while still in flight, essentially allowing it unlimited flying time.

The helicopters are a mixed bag as well, with about half being the neat little attack helicopters and such, but the other half being heavy lift choppers, search and rescue choppers, and the like. For instance, there is at least 20 HH-60G Sea Hawk choppers. Back in 2000 just 3 of these flew 240 missions in 17 days to deliver 160 tons of humanitarian aid to Mozambique, in Africa. In other words, they'll move a CVS at a time, can fly one from Boston to D.C. without refueling, and can do it in about 3 hours.

All of these planes and helicopters swirling about can be managed by an E3 AWACS plane, which is quite literally what we'd have if we took Logan Airport's Control Tower and made it airborne. Incidentally, all of this can be done at night, with torpedoes, missiles, and bullets flying at them. Fortunately the closest we came to that was some indigenous tribesman firing off some bows and arrows at an Indian Army helicopter scanning the area for survivors. As such, they took the attack as a good sign and didn't return fire.

Concord is now housed on about 20 ships and 3 or 4 bases, with one of the ships being a devoted hospital ship which can be transported by those aforementioned helicopters to land if need be (not the ship, just the hospital). The aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln alone is the length of three and a half football fields and carries 6,000 people who will devour 660 gallons of milk, everyday, for the 3 months I mentioned above. Just try to picture the size of their refrigerator. Too bad the "football fields" are paved with tar... it'd make a great place to throw a party for your friends and play a little football on the side. Anyway, it's got four steam driven catapults on the deck each of which can launch a CVS from 0 to 165mph in two seconds, every 80 seconds. Try not to laugh the next time one of your friends is bragging about getting their dinky 2,000lb car from 0 to 60 in 5 seconds. Had it been attached to one of these catapults it probably would have been ripped in half. And did you know the Lincoln could do all this while traveling at 37 knots (43 mph for you landlubbers)? Didn't think so.

The scale of all of this pales in comparison to the devastation. At last count 155,000 have been killed, which is essentially the entire population of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Responding to a crisis like that is hard enough, but the devastation is spread along an area roughly equivalent to the entire eastern seaboard of the US, from Calais, Maine, to Key West, Florida, and somehow the folks from Concord have got to go over the entire area and cherry-pick the survivors out, begin the reconstruction efforts, and help the various countries ensure this doesn't happen again.

It goes without saying that this is going to cost a lot of lives, a lot of sweat, and a lot of money. While the military efforts above can certainly ship a lot stuff around, thanks to our tax dollars, they're also going to need supplies to ship, and folks on the ground to coordinate all of these efforts. Fortunately most of the planet is mounting similar efforts, but those to will cost a lot. Your help is needed NOW. Please, if you can, spare some money and donate to the relief effort. Wikipedia is maintaining a list of the agencies trying to help at:

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Tsunami_Help/Aid_Agencies

And for up to the minute information have a look at The South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami Blog at:

http://tsunamihelp.blogspot.com

I note the estimated casualty figures sit around 400,000, which is the size of the population of Atlanta, and that's assuming the diseases which are sure to descend on the area don't take many more lives. Anything you can give will help.

Jason