It's not that they don't have the capability to air-drop aid.  It's that some idiot decided air-dropping aid would cause riots:

"It seems to me that without having any structure on the ground, in terms of distribution, that an airdrop is simply going to lead to riots as people try and go after that stuff,

"http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=67263"

It makes me sick.  These idiots think their airports, their precious governments, their precious distribution systems are so completely necessary, of such paramount importance, that without them, Haitians couldn't possibly take care of themselves, couldn't possibly distribute aid effectively. 

Their decision is rooted in prejudice against not only Haitians, but ALL of us regular, commoners, who couldn't possibly do anything properly without their precious and all-important security, infrastructure, distribution system, regulations, in other words, their control and authority.

In fact, it is so important it is worth sacrificing the lives of the 50k or so who will die in the next day due to lack of drinking water in order to first set up their precious systems of control:

"

"Kind of like getting water to the sinks and showers in your house without pipes."

Wrong.  That analogy is faulty.

If you're already standing in a waterfall, all you need to do is raise your head, open your mouth, and gulp.

Nations should be showering Haiti with air-drops of bottled water, hundreds of bottles of water per person, way more than necessary - an outrageous abundance of bottled water.  If that were to happen, there'd be no point in any Haitian having to hoard bottled water.  If there were an abundance of air-droped water, there'd be no rioting for it.

Instead, they're going to air-drop troops.

>Nations should be showering Haiti with air-drops of bottled water, hundreds of bottles of water per person, way more than necessary - an outrageous abundance of bottled water.

Greenpeace would assassinate someone if they spammed Haiti with that much plastic.

"you can drink the water in the top of your toilet tank"

Toilets?  What toilets?  You mean toilets in this building?

http://www.sy-thetis.org/Thetis99/ToLimnos/55-low-s.jpg

>>What should happen is within 4 hours of such a disaster you'd have multinational air forces dropping hundreds of thousands of crates of bottled water over the disaster zone.  Then, after DOUBLE the estimated necessary amount of water has been dropped over that disaster zone to sustain the ENTIRE population for the period of next phase of the disaster relief,<<

You'd add to the debris?

>> drop troops and medical personal to establish Landing zones and field hospitals.<<

Hospitals set up by air can only be supplied by air

>>Then, drop more water EVERYWHERE with maps showing the location of the LZs / field hospitals.  You'd have to drop food at this point, too, else the field hospitals would get swarmed with not only the injured, but also hungry people.<<

They would anyhow, because you gotta throw supplies to the hospitals without roads up

>>I mean what the #@!% are these people in charge thinking.  Have they lost their minds?  <<

Nobody is in charge of Haiti

>>Do they actually think you need to re-establish the government and infrastructure BEFORE you start delivering aid?  Are they that stupid?  Or do they intentionally want Haitians to die by the hundreds of thousands?<<

If you don't stop 50,000 people from running up on your hospital demanding food, you don't feed them, and you don't have a working hospital.  Same iwth an airfield.  The populace is its own worst enemy.  The best thing Haiti can do is walk inland.  Despite the press hype this is not a hurricane or tsunami.  It is an earthquake.  It has a pretty narrow "blast radius".  Walk into the coutnryside, drink less polluted streams, get some food.  Stop concentrating in Port Au Prince

What they should do is some docks and airfield construction in Port Au Prince, and get aid centers beyond it, and urge- order people to move out of town to shanty towns outside.  supply those by air. tryvery hard to get roads through the city and supply the city by the port.  use locals for that effort

reduce concentration in the city
increase mobility in the city
rely on air transport to create shelters outside the city

If people think "I gotta grab water I don't know when the next drop will be." it's because there isn't the expectation that these multinational disaster relief teams drop enough aid often enough.  Their track record is poor for successful relief, or at least their track record is at least questionable, and THAT'S why there are riots at air-drops.  If there were confidence in the multinational relief efforts; if there were a general confidence that in fact the multi-national disaster relief effort would successfull air-drop enough, there wouldn't be riots at air-drops.

The fact is that there isn't such confidence in the multi-national disaster relief agencies, and, obviously, for good reason.  And instead of the multi-national relief effort agencies taking responsibility themselves for this lack of confidence, they'll place the blame for the inevitability of riots on the desperate, rightly skeptical disaster victim.

The earthquake cant have wrecked all water in haiti

They've got enough money for water air-drops.  The US government's pledge alone of 100 million dollars is enough for 40 bottles of water per person for the whole population affected.

I see no point in helping them. Help yourselves imo.

Apathy is the best policy.