Chile Seeks Aid, TR Poised to Help
Team Rubicon’s advance element, now assembled in Los Angeles, continues to prepare for travel into Chile. Signals from the Chilean government are mixed. This morning’s charter flight from LA into southern Chile was refused clearance to fly into the country, with yesterday evening’s official position of the US State Department being that Chilean authorities “have the situation under control.” At the same time, AP reports a statement this morning by Chile’s President Michelle Bachelet that “we face a catastrophe of such unthinkable magnitude that it will require a giant effort” to recover. Concepcion province is under martial law after episodes of looting last night, and President Bachelet has stated that Chile will accept certain offers of international help and specifically needs field hospitals and rescuers to help relieve workers who have been laboring frantically for more than a day.
It’s important to remember that Chile is fundamentally different from Haiti. A stable and functional central government, well-established emergency infrastructure, and a history of earthquake preparedness position Chile to respond to this earthquake very effectively. However, as Chile’s own president has stated today, the magnitude of Saturday’s 8.8 earthquake is so enormous that it has overwhelmed even the best-prepared national system.
The frustration for Team Rubicon’s advance team is that our ability to provide precisely the kind of assistance described by President Bachelet, has been significantly delayed by the loss of our Sunday morning travel window. We don’t have infinite resources. We can’t keep a jet on standby at LAX waiting for authorization to land in Chile, well south of the affected area, and move north overland. Team Rubicon accurately anticipated precisely the kind of aid needed in Chile’s outlying regions, and mobilized accordingly. Unfortunately, without dedicated transportation assets, and with varying reports on the Chilean government’s willingness to allow any aircraft into Chilean airspace without specific authorization, we have to move away from charter transport and are currently looking at commercial air travel into Argentina and ground movement (across the Andes no less) into southern Chile. If we get there by Tuesday, it will be a major achievement.
Rubicon has successfully bridged the gap by assembling and pre-positioning a skilled and self-sustaining team of volunteers, with organic communications, medical, and security capabilities, within 24 hours of this disaster. Our assessment of the needs on the ground, particularly in the rural and coastal areas, has been confirmed accurate by media, social networking, and now by official Chilean government reports. We will move forward as rapidly as possible to put these resources at the service of our brothers and sisters in Chile. We are grateful for the support of Team Rubicon’s supporters, and we appreciate any assistance you can offer.
Let’s hope that the problems have been worked out and TR is on the move and the Tuesday arrival will happen..
Take care, God speed!
While there will be a role for Team Rubicon, different tactical efforts might be nneded than deployled in Haiti. According the the WA Post, while the treblor was of a greater magnitude than in Haiti, it is a nation also anticipating tectonic shifts.
“Unlike in Haiti, people think about earthquakes all the time in Chile. It’s in their mind,” said Michael Shifter, vice president for policy at the Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington. “This is a country that can mobilize resources and meet these national challenges.”
Chile has relatively low levels of corruption, making enforcement of building codes more credible than in other Latin American countries; its rank on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index is 25, just six spots below the United States, while Haiti’s is 168