Haiti Essay Outline

Thesis: Given that Haiti has a history with natural disasters, they should have been better prepared for the 2010 Earthquake by having stronger infrastructure, better crises management, and more governmental honesty.

A)   The lack of a strong infrastructure in the cities of Haiti caused more damage than there should have been.

                        i.         No reinforcing of construction plans

                       ii.         Lack of building codes

                     iii.         Damage caused to infrastructure, delayed aid.

                     iv.         Rubble and debris caused by collapsed constructions caused roads to constantly be filled with people seeking open space, restricting movement.

                       v.         Stronger infrastructure makes a difference in amount of damage, ex: Chile.

B)   In a developing country governmental honesty is essential for future success but Haiti’s government did not have that.

                        i.         Corruption causes the people to loose trust in their government.

                       ii.         Dishonesty causes economic decline/ problems.

                     iii.         Mal-management of dilemmas/ issues leads to problems such as Haiti having no controlling/ strong government during disaster.

                     iv.         Disorganized hierarchical structure of authority and decision-making disables ability to advance and improve.

                       v.         Political Figures not doing their job leads to gaps in the governing system. i.e. Rene Preval

C)   Haiti should have had a customized crisis management plan, considering their vast experience.

                        i.         Haiti followed the basic Crisis Management Plan that is traditionally used as an outline for creating customized plans.

                       ii.         Formal disaster planning tends to 1. Fail to be implemented or 2. Help with the occurring disaster.

                     iii.         Inaccurate record keeping i.e. count of injured, missing, and dead makes it hard for organizations to help to their full extent.

                     iv.         Rescue and recovery plans of individual relief agencies, tend to conflict with the government’s.

                       v.         NGO’s follow their own aid plans, causing varying methods, which result in confusion of the people.

                     vi.         Lack of a good crises management plan causes ground organizations struggle when helping survivors.

Looking back can be productive

While reading the report on Haiti and the earthquake, I took various notes. Just today I looked back at what I wrote down and noticed things I hadn’t noticed before. I think looking back to notes taken is a really good way to formulate questions because through your notes not only do you remember more clearly what it was that you were reading about but also you come up with new questions and things such as events to connect it with. When taking notes, you use prior knowledge to make connections and inferences to later formulate questions. When you look back and read previous notes on a subject you’ve been working on, you use prior knowledge and the things that you’ve learned to then think more and to analyze what you thought before. You can then come up with even more questions that will help you learn more.

So when I was looking at my notes, I saw that I quoted a part of the reading and next to it wrote: Why had the aid taken longer than it should have? But after reading it again I made a connection.

The part of the text that I quoted was:

“Delays in aid distribution led to angry appeals from aid workers and survivors, and some looting and sporadic violence were observed. There were also accounts of looters wounded or killed by vigilantes and neighborhoods that had constructed their own roadblock barricades.” It reminded me of what happened in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina left them in devastation and while private organizations provided aid, the federal government took a long time doing their job and providing aid. Looting became a really big problem in New Orleans and looters were also shot. Even though, in my opinion, New Orleans had much more of a reason to turn chaotic because they were in need of resources just like Haiti but in New Orleans, they went far longer than they should have without them. It’s true, Haiti also suffered very much with the earthquake and the aftershocks but aid arrived relatively quickly compared to New Orleans, but I think it should have arrived even earlier than it did.

Would have chaos and violent measures been able to be avoided if international aid had arrived earlier to Haiti? Its difficult to say but taking into account the circumstances in which things turned chaotic, it could be that the level of it could have been much lower and it would have lasted less. Also, the way in which aid was given, by dropping it from airplanes, throwing it out in the streets, it just made the people more desperate to get the resources provided. I think some kind of rationing should have taken place.

Using sources in research. Advanced Search-ProQuest

In class we learned ways to come up with sources when researching. Basically, you have your general question, which is what you are trying to base your research on. Then you have your sources, which are what you use to find specific information on the subject you are researching.  
I chose my question to be... Given the fact that Haiti has experienced numerous Earthquakes in the past, why weren't all or at least most of their structures earthquake-proof? Using ProQuest Advanced Search, I would then come up with sources I would need to find out about. For example, I would type into the search: devastating earthquakes in Haiti and limit the dates from 1850-2009. I would put the latest as the last month of 2009 so that I could avoid information on the current earthquake that happened in 2010, I would go only as far back as 1850 because in my opinion, buildings constructed before 1850 would not count as buildings that would be influenced by the environment since standardized earthquake proof structures were not developed until much later.

Haiti does not have any kind of standardized construction requirements that must be followed so what this source proved to me after I searched it was that with all the previous earthquakes they have had, even if in the late 1900’s the country was not economically stable or able to make standardized building plans or requirements that had to be followed in construction, once they entered the twenty first century, an effort to begin making buildings safer should have been made. This effort should have been made at least for important buildings such as the main jail and presidential palace that collapsed during the 2010 earthquake because their foundations were not strong enough to withhold the earthquake’s impact or aftershocks. The effort should have had included at least some kind of remodeling that followed safety building code that made them more stable and capable of withstand stronger earthquakes.

Another source that would help me find more information on the topic question I chose would be to search the annual percentage of houses and buildings that collapse after a natural disaster. When I entered the search, I came out with many different sources to look at but none seemed to give me exactly what I wanted. From this, I would have to either think of another way of phrasing it or another source to search OR, reading as much as I could take notes on things somewhat relevant to what I was looking for and summarize it to come out with something else that was not necessarily what I wanted at first but that could be just as useful.

I think that when doing research, one must keep an open mind. You must have an idea of what you want to learn about but be ready to change and begin to gather different information if what you wanted was something that you either could not find due to lack of searching skills or lack of information on it recorded.

Why was Haiti not prepared for the earthquake?

There's a long history of natural disasters so why was Haiti not prepared for it? The reading on the Haiti earthquake highlighted an issue that exists in many countries around the world. This issue is the lack of a standardized building code. For example, in an area that is often hit with hurricanes and tornadoes, buildings should have shatter proof windows while in a place that often experiences earthquakes, buildings should have standardized structures that guarantee they will withstand the impact of an earthquake. Haiti lacked this kind of preparation and precautions. Before the earthquake, Haiti was already a country with high levels of poverty, the earthquake just made it worse. The fact that Haiti was overall, a poor country, did not help much with the emergency created by the earthquake. It affected a great part of the poor population as well as a big part of the high-class population such as those who worked for the government.

Many were crushed under fallen structures that collapsed due to the lack of stability and strength in their bases to withhold the impact and movement created by the earthquake and aftershocks. In my opinion, the lack of stability in structures such as homes was probably the most devastating and affecting issue caused by the earthquake. It left many people homeless, without shelter and in some cases, left children orphaned. All of these things caused by the loss of homes created disorganization and havoc that later turned into violence and looting. This disorganization was worsened by the destruction of the capital’s presidential palace, which provided as a meeting place for those in charge. But what in my opinion made the most impact was the collapse of the main jail in Haiti’s capital. There were many criminals in that jail that were able to escape. They could have and probably did cause harm to the citizens, creating more chaos.

If Haiti were a wealthy country, they would have been able to provide for themselves in such events. Not only did they lack economic resources as a country but they also lacked the resources to be able to provide for its citizens. I think that the emergency period set by the UN should have been extended until there were enough places set up as the shelter  for those who’s homes had collapsed. In the future, Haiti and other countries should pay attention to previous events that relation with what they would soon face. If long ago, the city’s structures had also been completely destroyed, there should have been plans made to create blueprints that guaranterized the structures stability and by that, making it safe to life in.