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To: C19fan
I just spent half an hour or so "over" Port-a-prince & environs with Google Earth. It is astounding that the entire country seems depopulated -- including some nice-looking rural communities just west of P-a-p around the big lakes. Yet, down close to the port itself, the streets are totally mobbed with people, temporary "booths" in the street, and thousands of tarp-roofed hovels.

The port looks strange: very little cargo traffic -- but with a pristine cruise ship -- complete with tables with chairs for four, deck lounges, and swimming pool anchored out at the end of the quay.

I also thought it odd that, around the northern part of the harbor, there are at least twenty sunken ship hulks visible. (The characteristic dark, rusty discoloration of the water around them makes them "stand out".) There is even with one big hulk with several vessels moored right atop of -- and even tied to -- it. And there is a smaller, beached hulk farther south down the shore with people apparently living on it (superstructure rain-covered with the ubiquitous blue plastic tarps...)

There are a only a handful of planes at the airport -- including one twin-engine airliner parked "out in the dirt"...

I see zero signs of current agriculture; no one even seems to be trying to grow their own food. And the entire rest of the Haitian end of the island appears to be a depopulated, deforested wasteland.

Looks to me as if the Haitians have simply "given up" and are waiting for handouts...

38 posted on 01/13/2012 7:31:00 PM PST by TXnMA ("Allah": Satan's current alias...)
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To: C19fan; All
BTW, the Google Earth image is ca 2010. But I failed to mention that, at that time, there appeared to be dozens of brand new, identical, white, obviously unused, (NGO?) vehicles crammed into a small area along the shore of the port...

If I had given a bunch of money to Haitian relief, I'd be nighty PO'd.

40 posted on 01/13/2012 7:39:40 PM PST by TXnMA ("Allah": Satan's current alias...)
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