Amphibious Truck

Why is it so difficult to get help on the way quickly after a disaster?

I keep wondering about a lot of things that have to do with this.
* why is there no "world-quick-emergency-response-team?
* Should the nations not have this down by now? disaster relief?
* should water, food, rescue, shelter and disposing of the dead not have priority?
* Howcome it takes a minimum of three days before the relief effort starts to take form?
* where are the world armies? should they not respond in force with helicopters, amphibious vehicles, tanks and other equipment? why else do we HAVE all that stuff???
* when a pop concert is given, whole trucks of water, whole tent-camps and food stands spring up from the ground... so why are they not in Tahiti right now...? Aren't those resources needed now?

so... why is it so difficult to give PROPER after-disaster-care?

All insights greatly appreciated, thank you!

The majority of First World nations do indeed have quick-response teams in place...and many of those teams can be airborne within eight hours of notification of need. The French are to be especially commended for being the first to get boots and aid on the tarmac at Port-au-Prince's airport. Believe me, these nations do have it down.
You cannot have planes fully loaded with gear, personnel, fully fueled and sitting with engines idling just waiting for a disaster to strike. It takes a few hours to evaluate what's needed at the site of the emergency, to locate stores of those items, to move them to a site where they can be loaded on appropriate craft. It takes time for experienced rescuers to be notified of the need and for them to grab their "go packs" and get on the road to the assembly point and thence to the transport vehicles. It takes time for arrangements to be made with various regulatory agencies for all this gear and all those people to be gotten from point A to point B.
Once there, it may take a bit to get someplace for the transports to land, off-load their cargo and personnel and get back in the air so the next batch of transports can land.

You ask about military response. Well, we've sent the carrier USS Vincinnes, but it had to sail from Norfolk to a port further south to be loaded with the appropriate aircraft - warplanes aren't nearly as much help in a disaster as are helecopters... so they had to offload the aircraft that were already on that carrier and replace them..they also had to offload the pilots they had on the ship and replace them with pilots and crews qualified to fly those choppers - an F16 pilot is not trained to fly a Chinook, for instance, and wouldn't try!
Those heavy vehicles you mention - earth-movers, bulldozers and the like - also have to be collected from storage, placed on transports and moved, along with skilled operators, to where they can be offloaded and put to work.
You need to slow down - it's not Tahiti that needs the help, though you did type "Tahiti". As for rock concerts - I've been involved in them, and the difference is concerts are planned long in advance - we had plenty of time to get all those resources you mentioned in place and ready to go. Earthquakes and similar disasters can't be planned for with such precision because you don't know when and where they'll happen.
One more thing: Haiti does not have the infrastructure to handle the massive influx of aid - there's not enough room at the airport for all the gear that's ready to be offloaded...hell, they can't even land all the airplanes circling over the island waiting to land - some of them have had to divert to other islands to land and refuel and then wait on the ground until given the word that they can proceed back to Haiti.
And once the rescuers are there, it's a major challenge to get them from the airport to where they can get to work helping dig victims out of the rubble. One British team sat on their hands for more than a day, according to BBC, because there simply was no way to get them from the airport to where they could begin helping.
It's nobody's fault that some of this aid is going to be delayed and people who could've been helped will die. It's simply the way things worked out. People are doing the best they can. Have you stepped up and offered your help?

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