A logistical nightmare

The world is putting together relief supplies for Haiti, but getting it there continues to emerge as a daunting task. The port is ruined, making traffic via ship difficult. The airport is closed, making supplies by air problematic.

Air-traffic-wise, this time-lapse of air traffic under control of U.S. controllers paints a bleak picture.

The Department of Defense reports the 82nd Airborne has landed on Haiti, but with few vehicles at this point.

The Red Cross is stockpiling supplies in Panama, but so far none are getting to Haiti until the airport opens for relief supplies, according to the Red Cross.

“It’s going to be extraordinarily difficult,” Brian Atwood, the dean of the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, said. “I suspect that they’ll have to be using a lot of helicopters and other things to get into some of these remote areas. This has affected probably three million out of the nine million people of Haiti. I can’t tell you how devastating this is to a very, very poor country, whose infrastructure was very bad in the first place, which is why the devastation is always worse in a country like that.”

Meanwhile, the Associated Press has just released this unedited video: