Haitian sitx; lessons to be learned

Okay, here's a real-world sitx in progress. This thread isn't for updates or conspiracy theories. It's just for thinking through how you'd get through this if it happened where you are, or if you were there. Perhaps we might even come up with some useful help.

This is an extremely bad form of sitx.

If you experienced it, no matter how well prepared you think you are, you'd find it proof that no plan survives contact with the actual emergency, to paraphrase a military truism. Your oh-so-carefully-prepared bob is now crushed under tons of concrete. The roads aren't usable. Your family, friends and neighbors are scattered, perhaps lost, perhaps dead, perhaps screaming under rubble. There's no electricity, no food, no water, no communications, dead and injured everywhere. The landscape is barren, so there's no foraging.

How do you react, what do you do? You've got maybe 96 hours left to find relatively clean water before you and most everybody else are dead. It's ok to use Google Earth to look around and see what's available.

Ideas?

I'll add my take after a few courses are outlined by others.

reply to post by apacheman


If this happened anywhere other than Haiti, people would have a chance.

Haiti, tho, was a disaster before this happened. On a good day, the air smelled like rotten eggs floating in gasoline. Now, it's going to smell like decomposing bodies and rotten eggs floating in gasoline.

I recall Hatian boat refugees during the last years of the dictator. We will probably see them land on Florida in weeks.

Haiti has a (or had a) population of around 9,000,000 with that many people stuck on an island with limited to no available water or food . Thing have the potential to get real bad. We need to get as much Red Cross and US humanitarian aid in there ASAP.

True observations, but what to do?

Water is the single most crucial factor. Solar stills, both manufactured and improvised, might be a partial answer. Water purification tablets might be a stopgap, combined with filtering through layers of cloth, recapturing whatever is left in pipes. How fast can a salt water converter be set up, anyone know?

Ok, here's what I see lacking in the rescue responses and what I would do about it:

Leadership.

Someone needs to get up on a pile of rocks are say: "You, you, you , and you...start clearing this road, NOW! You, you, you, and you, forma a chain and pile what they are clearing here. Get these roads, cleared, now!"

There are people doing heroic work there now, but it seems like everyone's focussed on doing what they are trained to do, and doing it well. But this is so much bigger, the assumptions they work under are no longer valid. They are still operating as if this were a standard disaster with a local support system outside the disaster zone still in place.

The Haitian people are in a state of shock. Even with casualties, though, there are still a huge number of able bodies. Someone needs to organize them, draft them, get them to doing useful work immediately or the problems will multiply swiftly. The rescue workers are making a huge mistake in not drafting the locals and organizing them.

If those roads aren't cleared, and soon, probably ~10K people an hour will die from lack of water soon.

Just what I'd do, anyway.

reply to post by apacheman


IMO the truth be told you can't plan for a disaster on that scale . Aside from the fact that in such an event would wipe out my local sector post , my fellow members of the Community Emergency Response Team would have been wiped out . I akin the possible scenarios to something like this an organized community can survive when either sufficient warning is given or the event is a kin to a recession . If no warning is or can be received and you have an event akin to a depression then you have had it .

This in no way excuses a community from not taking the necessary steps to prepare itself for the worst . Its just that a fact of life that you can't plan for everything just take a look at fire escapes in buildings .

The problem Haiti is it was never meant to sustain a population of 9 million people. The city of Port Au Prince was only meant to sustain a population of 50K people. The population of Port Au Prince in 1957 was 250K people.

So in 53 years the people of Haiti have managed to breed like rabbits increasing their population to 9 million people while they burn wood for fuel. Nature the great gaia has a way of getting rid of stupid people. And that may sound very harsh but it's true. Why we as civilized society fail to realize social dawrinism will ALWAYS be a part of mother nature boggles my mind. There are tons of Haitis all over the world just waiting to implode. Due to population growth and a welfare mentality caused by the rest of the world. The Haitian people couldn't even build a Presidential Palace that withstood a major earthquake without competely collapsing. I mean come on. It's a major tragedy and very very awful...sad........etc.

I mean honestly if you were an alien looking down at planet Earth right now and us human beings you'd probably be shaking your head. A Haitian 20 year old male burning wood for fuel yet wearing fashionable cargo shorts and a polo? Something is very very wrong with that picture. Abject poverty on one side of an island and prosperity on the other?

I saw some shopping carts as well as some potatoe chip bags in one of the pictures. I would grab one of the carts and some of the mylar bags and make my way to the beach. Along the way I would look for a piece of clear plastic as well as some stiff wire and some string. An inner tube from a bike and a long straight stick would be great as well for making a hawaiian rig to fish with. Once on the beach I would dig a hole to make a solar still to get some water. I would use the shopping cart as a make shift fish trap with the shinny mylar bags torn into strips for the bait. I would sharpen the wire on some concrete and make a fishing hook. If worse came to worse I suppose I could get by with a sharpened stick and clear plastic garbage bag. I know atleast 10 different ways to start a fire, but seeing as there are all the buildings on fire that wouldn't be a problem. The fish would be so fresh they wouldn't even need to be cooked. Water would be the primary concern and I think the solar still would be the best way to go. I saw a video today of a Coast Guard fly over and I didn't see anyone on the beaches, they were all massed in the streets.

The only other thing I would point out is that third world country's tend to be lacking in such things as building codes that may have prevented a lot of the destruction . My initial point still stands thou computer modeling can only give us a picture based on what data is feed into the system .

Cheers xpert11 .

reply to post by Mogwomp


Solar still? Haha don't you know Haitians are poor?. Poverty is an excuse for everything....including learning how to make a solar still. Yet MANY of the Haitians are walking around in polos and cargo shorts.

I agree with you most would be like a solar what? but how simple is that a a piece of clear plastic, a cup, and a hole in the ground. You could even use your own urine if need be. I'm really thinking about this shopping cart fishing trap now. I've used minnow traps before and you don't even need to bait them for em to work. I would close the top in with some braided palm leaves and the back of the shopping cart is hinged. Would either rig up some type of funnel in the back or set it up with a trigering device that I could operate from shore. With a crushed crab or 2 for some real bait I think it would work great. The solar still would probably work exceptionally welll in the tropical climate.

Originally posted by Zosynspiracy
Nature the great gaia has a way of getting rid of stupid people. And that may sound very harsh but it's true.

"G"Day Wise Ones,

Yes, sad but true, who's next?

Mother is pissed and looking for the next lot to depopulate, she knows humans are the ones hurting her.

The Earth is alive and we are parasites, there are good and there are bad parasites.

When you itch you scratch!!!!!

Blessed Be: Kernoonos.......

reply to post by Mogwomp


Reminds me of the saying “give a man a fish he will eat for a day, but teach a man to fish he will eat the rest of his life”.

Yep, can't remember where I first saw how to make a solar still, but I knew when I saw it...that is one thing that can definitely prove to be a life-saver someday...

And yes, it boggles my mind that people starve when they are right by the beach...

I mean...what??? Huh??? Seriously???

I am surprised that this thread isn't getting much attention from the survivalists out there. Thread after thread has been posted about how to survive sitx when the shtf. Well, people in Haiti are in the middle of it and the fecal matter has most definitely hit the fan.

Just because you live in a location unlike Haiti, doesn't mean that this type of human behavior won't happen when the shtf. Your area may not descend into chaos as quickly as Haiti, but given enough time the same human behavior will take hold. The same thing happened in New Orleans as help was delayed. If the catastrophe is big enough, it will happen.

Just a video to show what is going on for those who haven't seen it.



The thing I take out of this more than anything else is self preservation. Get out of populated areas however you can. Figure out a group of people that you can trust and band together for self preservation because even if you figure out how to procure water for yourself, the looters will kill you for it in a heartbeat.

reply to post by Karlhungis


What can any one say that hasn’t been said before one this site. Any one who thinks the government is going to save them in a shift situation is going to be very disappointed and possibly dead.
Haiti has been striped bare of all natural resources years ago. So unless you prepared long ago for an event like this and had a building capable of withstanding a 7.0 magnitude quake, Your screwed.
Mogwomp I love your ingenuity but the said truth is that the area surrounding Haiti has been extremely over fished and highly polluted. I consider myself an excellent fisherman but feel I would have trouble finding much in them waters to live on. Maybe if you live there you would know what too look for.

There are going to be a lot of people from Haiti that will be able to teach us a thing or two about survival in the worst possible circumstances. When I see the videos, I see a lot of people surviving.

They may not be following some cleaned up edited text book version of survival many of us are familiar with, but that are getting the job done.

For most of the people there, it is not just an issue of self preservation but also expending vital energy, resources and time to assist their immediate families and even strangers.

I have been in contact with friends in Santo and they are working night and day to set up a field hospital and transport injured people to hospitals in Jimini & Barahona closer to the DR border.

My friend there told me of a water filtration system that was set up in Santo and in several places around Porta au Prince on the fly using 55 gal drums layered with charcoal, sand and gravel. They have been using this for days now and it has sustained them as they waited for bottled water to be delivered.

I think one of the greatest lessons is to be adaptable and to not be afraid to be decisive and take the lead.