[DelaneyM]

Having lived through a Caribbean hurricane (https://www.caymancompass.com/2021/09/12/remembering-hurrica...), I can assure you that an airship is much less potentially useful than cargo ships and ferries.

The ports were fine; what we had trouble sourcing was labourers, water, food, and building supplies.

He’d do a lot more good by repurposing a super-yacht as a passenger ferry, tbh.

[whoisthemachine]

From TFA:

> Brin runs a separate non-profit, called Global Support and Development, that has already carried out such missions by sea, in the Caribbean, Latin American and the South Pacific. It originally used Brin’s own superyacht to ferry medical personnel to the scene of hurricanes and other disasters, and recently launched a purpose built vessel capable of transporting dozens of medical staff and full-size shipping containers.

Maybe the intent is to reach areas inland that are inaccessible by plane, automobile, or helicopter?

[sethhochberg]

Often ports are fine, but in the Maui fire aftermath for example a lack of significant port infrastructure was frequently cited as a barrier to fast recovery.

I’m not saying airships are better than water ships all the time, but there are certainly real use cases for being able to drop tons of cargo in a lightly improved landing field.

[hinkley]

The goal of relief efforts is to get food and especially water in as quickly as possible. Three days without fresh water and you’re already dealing with pathogens.

We take for granted that cargo planes and ships can skirt a tropical storm and sneak in while the trees are still dripping. A dirigible is a fair weather friend. It cannot arrive until relief efforts are well underway. That doesn’t make them useless, but it also doesn’t make them useful.

[DelaneyM]

Don’t underestimate the importance of building supplies and labor.

Food and water are good, though we have a lot stockpiled already, but it’s easy to underestimate how tough things can get in the summer when there’s no A/C or refrigeration in the supermarkets. Heck, it took us a week to get a gas station back online in ‘04, cars and trucks were abandoned on the roads.

[quijoteuniv]

Ah! I just thought it was a billionar whim and a PR stunt to justify spending a lot of money on it

[strangattractor]

Maybe a good use for all those Russian Super Yachts:)