Could the Haitian Disaster Have Been Avoided?

So two weeks ago today a massive earthquake shook the island country of Haiti and wreaked havoc on its people. We've all heard about this and the world has responded to the tragedy with an amazing outpouring of love and support. While it's difficult to imagine this today, I believe this event has triggered a new day for Haiti and the Haitian people to get off to a fresh start, to rebuild, achieve greatness and become a model for other impoverished nations. In the end this "act of God" may be just what this poor country needed to break its cycle of oppression and poverty. This high cost of greatness, in the form of so many lost lives, may be the price that had to be paid...or could it have been avoided?

We wouldn't be doing ourselves any favors if we don't ask the hard questions in the wake of disaster. After all, if we don't learn from our mistakes then how will we learn? So let me ask: Could this disaster have been avoided? Were the warning signs there?

While the earthquake itself was certainly unavoidable, I submit that actions could have been undertaken for at least the past two years to build a disaster recovery plan that would have reduced loss of life and allowed for swifter rescue and aid distribution. Two years ago scientists from Purdue University warned Haiti that it was ripe for a 7.2 magnitude earthquake. While it certainly wasn't enough time for the entire capital of Port-Au-Prince to rebuild all it's structure to earthquake code, there could have been an earthquake recovery plan identified along with some smaller projects perhaps such as reinforcing the major shipping port or building some high-occupancy shelters, or for Pete's sake just having a stockpile of tents and fresh water on hand somewhere! What about something as simple as a communication plan so people would know where to go for aid in the event of something of that magnitude.

So this leads me to my next question, with all due respect as I know they lost a lot of their own as well, but....what was the UN doing in Haiti? Hindsight being 20/20 doesn't it appear that they could have done a much better job alerting the international community to this pending disaster and asking the world for assistance beforehand knowing how devastating a 7.0 or 7.2 earthquake would be to this island with absolutely no structures built to sustain an earthquake of this nature? Couldn't they have done more to plan for this day, even if it couldn't have been avoided?

Finally, here comes the U.S. to the rescue. With money and soldiers and hospital ships and who's paying for all that? You and I are. If we're expected to save the day then shouldn't we have a say in what goes on in these neighboring countries? Shouldn't we have been there BEFORE this tragedy occurred expressing our concern and trying to get something done about it? Well, we were there...the question is what were we doing?

I guess in the end there is plenty of blame to go around. But it's not about laying blame. It's about fixing it and not letting it happen again - in Haiti or anywhere else. If that makes me an imperialist, then so be it.