Going the Distance: The U.S. Tsunami Relief Effort 2005

Americans Respond to Tragedy

"On the first day of a new year, we join the world in feeling enormous sadness over a great human tragedy. Last Sunday, an earthquake and violent tsunami struck the nations that surround the Indian Ocean. The carnage is of a scale that defies comprehension, with over 100,000 deaths reported. I have signed a proclamation calling for our nation's flag to be flown at half-staff this coming week. As the people of this devastated region struggle to recover, we offer our love and compassion, and our assurance that America will be there to help."
 
                                    -- Radio Address by President George W. Bush
                                        January 1, 2005

 

On December 26, 2004, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake off the west coast of Northern Sumatra, Indonesia, triggered a tsunami -- a series of giant waves -- that inundated coastal areas of Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, India, and Malaysia, as well as Indian Ocean islands and parts of East Africa. Both the American people and the U.S government responded with massive support for the people swept up in the terrible tragedy of the earthquake and tsunami.

"Americans are a compassionate people," said President Bush in his radio address on New Year's Day, "and we are already hard at work helping those nations meet these challenges. The United States has pledged $350 million in relief assistance.... Disaster response officials are on the ground and have established a support center in Thailand that is manned and operational; more than 20 patrol and cargo aircraft have been made available to assess the disaster and deliver relief supplies.... We have dispatched the aircraft carrier, Abraham Lincoln, the Maritime pre-positioning squadron from Guam, and an amphibious ship carrying a Marine Expeditionary Unit...to support relief efforts, to include the generation of clean water."

This was the beginning. By January 12, the day following a conference of donors in Geneva, Switzerland, about $88 million -- out of the $350 million in relief funds for the region pledged by the U.S. government -- had been committed to specific projects in the affected nations. That figure did not include the cost of military relief efforts. As of January 12, more than 15,000 U.S. military personnel were involved in providing relief support in the affected region. Twenty-five ships and 94 aircraft were participating in the effort. The U.S. military had delivered about 2.2 million pounds of relief supplies to affected nations, including 16,000 gallons of water, 113,000 pounds of food, and 140,500 pounds of relief supplies in the previous 24 hours alone. On February 9, President Bush asked Congress to increase the U.S. commitment to a total of $950 million.

 

In addition to initiating the flow of U.S. funds and materiel as part of a coordinated global relief effort, President Bush dispatched then Secretary of State Colin Powell and his brother, Governor Jeb Bush of Florida, in the first days after the disaster to assess the situation. Speaking in Sri Lanka, January 7, Secretary Powell said: "I will leave the region this afternoon and report to President Bush on all that I have seen in Thailand, in Indonesia, and here in Sri Lanka, as well as the reports I received about what happened in other nations in the region. Twelve countries spread over thousands of miles, all struck by a single event, a single catastrophe, and the international community has mobilized in a way that I have never seen before, to help the affected people...to rebuild their lives."

While the U.S. Department of Defense supplied the logistics component, using its ships, planes, and helicopters to establish a rapid supply chain to stricken regions, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) coordinated much civilian activity. Speaking January 11 in Geneva, USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios estimated the daily cost of U.S. military relief efforts in the region to be more than $5 million a day, in addition to the initial $350 overall U.S. government commitment. USAID, Natsios emphasized, "is currently undertaking one of the largest relief efforts in its history in order to save lives, mitigate human suffering, and reduce the economic impact of the Indian Ocean disaster."

"Of the $350 million we have already committed or spent, USAID has dispersed $78 million.... $35 million of that is [going] to United Nations agencies, and the rest to the Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies...to non-governmental organizations, to the direct purchases of commodities by our staff, or to air flights."

After the first round of emergency relief efforts, the United States and the world community look forward to a period of long-term reconstruction and rebuilding in the region. The tragedy has heightened the importance of the World Conference on Disaster Reduction -- to be held in Kobe, Japan, during the third week of January -- and added new urgency to the technical and scientific tasks of building an early warning system for earthquakes and tsunamis in the Indian Ocean similar to the one that exists in the Pacific, where tsunamis are far more frequent.

In the American system, the private sector plays an enormous role in disaster relief efforts. Acknowledging this reality, President Bush on January 3 appointed two former presidents -- his father, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton -- to head an effort to raise funds directly from the American people, an effort already well underway at that date. Almost from the earliest news reports of the disaster, corporations and many, many individual Americans had offered up relief donations on their own.

"In the coming days," Bush said, "Presidents Clinton and Bush will be speaking about the countless ways individuals and businesses can support this urgent cause. I ask every American to contribute as they are able to do so."

"Americans," the President added, "have suffered sudden catastrophe many times in our own history, from massive earthquakes in Anchorage and San Francisco, to destructive wildfires in the West, to the series of hurricanes that struck Florida last year. From our own experiences, we know that nothing can take away the grief of those affected by tragedy. We also know that Americans have a history of rising to meet great humanitarian challenges and of providing hope to suffering peoples. As men and women across the devastated region begin to rebuild, we offer our sustained compassion and our generosity, and our assurance that America will be there to help."