As aid workers dug through the rubble of Haitian cities devastated by Tuesday's massive earthquake, county, state and federal agencies across South Florida were gearing up Thursday to accommodate anticipated waves of refugees from the battered Caribbean nation.
In Palm Beach County, a mass-migration expert with the emergency management division was monitoring relief efforts, and emergency managers were readying for action if immigrants started coming ashore.
"Any time you have an event like this," migration is a possibility, said Chuck Tear, Palm Beach County's emergency operations director. "We're continuing to monitor the situation and will provide support as it's requested."
Tear's office on Thursday also was in contact with the Florida Emergency Operations Center, which partially activated on Wednesday and started cataloging resources to make available to Haiti.
With its miles of coastline, Palm Beach County long has been a landing point for desperate immigrants, many of whom set out for Miami from the Bahamas and are carried north by the Gulf Stream.
In May, at least 10 Haitians drowned after a boat carrying more than 30 migrants capsized in the waters between Bimini and Boynton Beach. Survivors told federal authorities they made their way to the Bahamas from Haiti and paid thousands of dollars to smugglers before risking the treacherous voyage.
As local emergency managers planned for people who might make similar trips, Florida's social services agency was scrambling to make sure it was ready if called upon by the federal authorities.
If the government decides to repatriate an estimated 45,000 American citizens who were living in Port-au-Prince when the magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck, the Department of Children and Families would play a role, said Hiran Ruiz, DCF's director of refugee services.
DCF workers would help newly arrived Americans with food stamps, tax enrollment and signing up for the Medicaid program, Ruiz said.
The agency also would factor in the federal government's plan to deal with a mass-migration. If waves of refugees start landing on Florida's shores, DCF and federal immigration authorities would be responsible for any unattended children, Ruiz said.
"We have a task force working on making sure we are ready to go should that be the case," he said.
Homeland security specialists at the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office on Thursday also were going over a mass-migration plan, which calls for a response from police and fire-rescue agencies from Martin to Monroe counties, said Teri Barbera, sheriff's office spokeswoman.
In the Bahamas, a popular stop-over for Haitians bound for South Florida, the country's National Emergency Management Agency was taking steps Thursday to ready the islands for an influx of immigrants, said Capt. Stephen Russell, head of the agency.
Bahamian emergency officials directed tents, bedding food and manpower to areas where they expect refugees to land, including Great Inagua.
"We are getting ready now," Russell said, "even if the refugees don't come for two or three weeks."
Didn't Rahm Emanuel mention something about not letting a crisis go unused?? Obummer and his fellow travelers struck gold when this earthquake hit Haiti.