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Haiti - Combined Task Force Hurricane Matthew

The 400 service members who took part in humanitarian relief efforts following Hurricane Matthew's wrath in Haiti are expected to return home in a couple of days, Navy Admiral Kurt W. Tidd, commander of U.S. Southern Command, told reporters at the Pentagon Oct. 18, 2016. "We were told to prepare for a two-week mission and I think that looks like it is going to be a pretty accurate timeline," Tidd said of Joint Task Force-Matthew relief work conducted out of Port-au-Prince.

Matthew was a major hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale with sustained winds near 145 miles per hour (MPH) and this storm remained a powerful hurricane. Hurricane Matthew was a deadly hurricane that swept through the Carribbean, briefly reaching category 5 intensity, before impacting Haiti, Cuba and the Bahamas. It then paralleled the United States coastline from Florida north to the Carolinas. The storm made its U.S. landfall in South Carolina as a category 1 storm.

Hurricane Matthew made an initial landfall near Haiti’s Les Anglais commune, Sud Department, on October 4, before making a secondary landfall over eastern Cuba on October 4 and continuing to traverse The Bahamas from October 5–6. The storm brought destructive winds, heavy rainfall, and dangerous storm surge, resulting in extensive damage to crops, houses, and infrastructure, as well as widespread flooding in some areas. Haiti, the country hardest hit, observed the last of its three official days of mourning 11 October 2016. Official death tolls there varied widely, from around 400 to over 1,000. Many areas of the country remained difficult to reach.

In the path of Hurricane Matthew, disaster response and humanitarian assistance personnel mobilized to provide relief to affected communities and infrastructure in the Caribbean and along the East coast of the U.S. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) worked directly with federal, state and local organizations to assist in the response.

Joint Task Force-Matthew is supporting the critical early stages of U.S. disaster assistance to Haiti led by USAID. As the ongoing international relief mission progresses and more experienced experts arrive to aid longer-term recovery and reconstruction, U.S. military capabilities would no longer be needed, and any remaining tasks performed by the task force would be assumed by other, more experienced relief organizations.

USS Iwo Jima departed Naval Station Norfolk on Oct. 8 to relieve USS Mesa Verde in support of SOUTHCOM with humanitarian efforts in Haiti. Iwo Jima arrived 13 October 2016. USS Mesa Verde received orders on Oct. 7 to support SOUTHCOM with humanitarian efforts in Haiti. The ship arrived Oct. 9. USNS Comfort departed NS Norfolk on Oct. 4 with 280 medical personnel in an area clear of the hurricane in the event they were tasked to provide support. At least 34 Airmen from the 621st Contingency Response Wing and associated aerial port equipment supported US Transportation Command’s Joint Task Force-Port Opening, that was co-located with Joint Task Force-Matthew at Port-au-Prince International Airport, Haiti.

US military personnel began arriving 07 October 2016 on the hurricane-ravaged island nation of Haiti to begin storm response efforts as Combined Task Force Hurricane Matthew mobilized there. At the end of the day, there were about 250 personnel, with that figure rising to 350 within about 24 hours. The task force worked with the U.S. Agency for International Development to begin relief efforts. As troops arrived, work was under way to prioritize hurricane response efforts with USAID. The nine helicopters on Haiti, including CH-53 Sea Stallions and CH-47 Chinooks, comprise a critical element for supporting this mission, simply because of the terrain in Haiti, some of which is mountainous.

USAID’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance deployed a Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) to the central Caribbean. These disaster experts will coordinate with governments of affected countries--including Jamaica, Haiti, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Bahamas, and Belize-- and humanitarian organizations on the ground to bring vital humanitarian assistance to those in need, if requested. USAID also strategically pre-positioned emergency relief supplies -- including shelter materials, blankets, hygiene kits, household items, and water purification equipment -- to ensure they are available to help the affected communities.

Humanitarian actors remain concerned that Hurricane Matthew could exacerbate the spread of cholera in Haiti. Unprecedented flooding, particularly in the hard-hit southwestern peninsula, has contaminated already-scarce safe drinking water, drastically increasing the risk of a cholera outbreak. Once contracted, dehydration caused by cholera can kill children in as quickly as six hours. Cholera is treatable, and the most common and dangerous symptom is dehydration. But lack of infrastructure and hospitals, made worse by the hurricane damage, could make combating an epidemic difficult for Haiti.

On 08 October 2016, the DART, with DoD helicopter support, transported non-governmental organization (NGO) St. Boniface Haiti Foundation doctors to Sud to assess needs and damages at a previously inaccessible USAID-funded hospital on Ile-a-Vache Island, as well as in other health care facilities in Les Anglais. The doctors reported that the hurricane had resulted in nearly 180 deaths and approximately 700 injuries in communities near the center of the commune. The assessment identified significant health and water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) needs, including limited access to safe drinking water, prompting populations to consume water from unprotected sources. The local hospital had also exhausted many medical supplies.

The hope for Haiti in the face of cholera lies in lessons learned, following a 2010 earthquake, after which Haiti suffered the worst cholera outbreak in modern history, according to the Center for Disease Control. Nearly 10,000 people in Haiti died of the treatable disease. The international community bears the burden as well. The U.N. publicly took responsibility for bringing Virbrio cholerae, the bacteria which causes cholera, through Nepalese peacekeepers who went to the island nation following the earthquake. On 11 October 2016, the World Health Organization announced it is sending one million doses of oral cholera vaccine to Haiti. Vaccinating all 10 million Haitians on the island would cost over $100 million, according to the American Council on Science and Health.