Haiti

This is such an overwhelming story. I've just been stunned following the news accounts. They need so much help, and help is arriving, but not fast enough. It seems that bottlenecks are occurring because the airport has been shutdown for some reason, and that many aid organizations are sitting over there on top of their supplies, and are not moving out into the devastated areas (which is essentially Port-au Prince). Security seems to be a concern, but I think that they may be over concerned on this issue and really need to begin getting supplies to the people. This is what makes me angry about aid organizations in this sort of setting; they have this corporate type mentality about protocol and procedures, when thinking out of the box is what is essential at a time like this. People are literally dying by the minute, and bureaucracy and extreme concerns for self-safety cause things to grind to a halt. Most of the big agencies like the Red Cross don't seem to distributing any aid even yet because of these issues, and the only agency that I've seen on television that seems to be actively assisting people right now is World Vision (www.WorldVision.org/Haiti). I'm sure there are a few others as well, like maybe Doctors Without Borders, but I haven't seen much on any other groups that are actively working on the ground. They keep saying that so many materiels have been sent to Haiti, millions of dollars worth, but the people say that no one is helping them, and news reporters don't see much evidence of any assistance reaching the people. The Haitian people are seeing that search and rescue teams are concentrating first on searching out places like the posh hotels where foreigners were staying, while they are left largely to their own devices in pulling friends and family from the rubble, and they see supplies that are cordoned off from them, for God only knows what reasons. We apparently have a World Vision warehouse here in Denver that has already shipped supplies to Haiti on Thursday, and I'm going to see if I can volunteer over there this weekend in getting supplies ready for shipment.