The United States said Friday that Haiti’s small airport and other poor infrastructure was preventing all of the current aid supplies from reaching the people who need them. "We have a lot of stuff geared, poised to flow. The limitation right now is the inherent infrastructure in Haiti," State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said. Crowley told reporters that Miami-based US Southern Command has determined that Port-au-Prince airport, which has one runway, can handle only 90 take-offs and landings per day. Even that number has not been reached yet, he said. He added that the arrival of the US aircraft carrier Carl Vinson, which carries 19 helicopters, will give Haiti the equivalent of a second airport.
The United States is also trying to build a make-shift heliport near the main airport in Port-au-Prince to help deliver water, food and medicine. Delivering by sea is also a challenge. "For the moment, for large ships the port is unusable," Crowley said. "We’re looking at assets in the Dominican Republic," which is on the other side of the island shared with Haiti, he said. He also recalled "we’re using Guantanamo as a staging area" to send in supplies. Guantanamo is a naval base on the island of Cuba, where a field hospital is treating 24 Americans who were seriously injured in the quake.
Most of the healthy people are being evacuated through the neighboring Dominican Republic. Some 846 Americans have already been evacuated from Haiti, and 160 others will leave later Friday, Crowley said. He said another five Americans have been confirmed dead in addition to one on Thursday. Around 40,000 to 45,000 American citizens live in Haiti, and the number of dead among them is likely to increase, he said.
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