For years, the Miami River has served as the shipping point for food stuffs and commodities bound for Haiti. So when the January earthquake left Port-au-Prince with just one working pier able to take in deep draft vessels, Munir Mourra and other local shippers thought they would simply re-route and send aid shipments through Haiti's northern ports.
Instead, they've been rebuffed.
"The reality is the river has not seen much of the relief effort," says Mourra, who had his eye on the port at Cape Haitian, among others. He and other river operations say that lingering affects from what has long been termed "The Republic of Port of Prince" -- the belief that the Haitian government only cares about its capital, where inbound shipping can easily be controlled by government bureaucrats -- aren't making it possible to bear supplies directly to areas in need.
Now, much of the relief effort is arriving through overland routes from the Dominican Republic, while the rest is flown in through the Port-au-Prince airport's one working runway. Unloading ships at Haiti's other ports would be much faster, Mourra says, but those ports weren't fully developed.
To make matters worse, the shippers are running into post-earthquake tariffs and customs issues when they attempt to unload.
Still, the Miami River outfits are not giving up hope, and will attempt to garner support for their plan to bring aid in a more efficient manner.
"We need to make the argument about flooding the relief into the outlaying area," said Miami River Marine Group head Fran Bonhnsack. "The worst thing is that aid is being channeled through the Dominican Republic, who is doing a better lobbying job than us."
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Bonhnsack says that while the shippers work to establish themselves at the northern ports, the Miami River fleet will work to reach full deployment ability in anticipation.
"My role is to now knock on doors and keep giving the message till we get the right person's attention, and then we can get mobilized."
