The Foreign Service Journal, April 2010

A P R I L 2 0 1 0 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 19 with no modern equipment or anes- thesia. The removal of thousands of bodies, a major sanitation/health risk, was vividly reported, as well. Amid the din of these emotional reports, the underlying question was, “Why can’t the United States and the inter- national community do more?” Soon the media began to focus on isolated incidents of violence. Store windows broken by marauding, hungry, teenagers, and crowds clamoring be- hind food trucks were captured by television networks. The images misrepresented the bravery and resolution of the Haitian people, but they constituted news. The Haitian government and the U.S. military soon began to deter the violence, both by being present and by setting up controls at food distribution sites. Mistakes were made. Some search-and-rescue teams that deployed were not certified for international disaster relief and came without adequate supplies and training. Some teams wandered outside the carefully planned grid system set up by the United Nations to provide help. Others disregarded local au- thorities and ignored important cul- tural signals. These teams were well-motivated and they worked very hard in difficult circumstances, but more often than not, they made co- ordination more challenging. Thinking Outside the Tent In contrast, the embassy and DART were highly sensi- tive to the plight of the Haitian government and respectful of local authority. Dumping food off the back of a truck was a recipe for chaos, and they knew that food distribution would be more orderly if they worked with local leaders. They realized that they had to “think outside the tent,” pro- viding temporary shelters for the displaced, reuniting fam- ilies or finding stable structures in which to house people. F O C U S USAID’s Disaster Assistance Response Team began operating in Haiti within 24 hours.