I've just been reading the Wired story about the emergency response to the Haiti earthquake. A good read, if you don't subscribe find a copy or read it on the web.
One of the big things I see missing in the emergency response system is potable water supply. In my mind, there should be skid-mounted, self-contained desalination units prepositioned around the globe for quick deployment. The technology is mature and in the full scheme of things, not all that expensive. A 40,000 GPD unit (easily adequate for 30,000+ people, 50,000+ in a pinch) fits into a 20 foot shipping container; add another 20 foot container with supplies, a generator and fuel and it could be delivered to any remote site near any kind of water via cargo airplane and helicopter, or for that matter, could be air-dropped. If we can air-drop main battle tanks, we can by Gods air-drop life-saving water. Send a half-dozen trained Airborne troops along with it and water will be flowing within 12 hours. Once water and emergency medical is in place (within a few days the Norwegian Red Cross had a full hospital set up in Haiti) everything else can follow. A human can survive a month without food, most places nearly indefinitely without a lot of shelter, but only a few days without water. And having clean water would obviate much of the human suffering that follows disasters that is caused by water-borne illness. If you don't have to scoop drinking water from a stream that someone 100 yards upstream just shit in, you are much less likely to get dysentery.
And maybe, just maybe, the world can come up with a system where there is one agency or person in charge for each disaster response...
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