They do not have to be sorted, collected shipped and delivered by the same people. One group might have canned food. One group might have blankets. One hospital group might have unexpired medicines. They have collected it, they have sorted it and they will deliver it. They will not hopefully (in chaos anything can happen) get in anyone's way because the anyone's are not in place yet. And a place that has had a disaster might not have shops to purchase from. Perhaps a flotilla of boats manned/womanned by retired military including nurses could make it from Hong Cong a week earlier than agencies and military are making it right now. Certainly in Haiti when we were 80 miles or so from American soil..and remember that boats make it with refugees all the time...we could have much faster gotten water and tarps..80 miles...people go on picnics farther away than that.

Nothing has to block the way of anything. Under martial law tell the people in the way they can not go to the epicenter, they can not use certain roads, they can not use certain airstrips, they can not use certain ports. There will be other avenues. There will be jungle trails perhaps. There will be places where small craft can land. There might be some water buffalo. There probably are missionaries who have contacts back and forth. They can work with known people. The biggest problem I see is bad people getting into the mix. That is the biggest problem..child trafficing etc..not too many teddy bears. If you have a huge pile of teddy bears, if they are not moldy etc., then every child gets a Christmas present eventually. Too much stuff is rarely a problem although everyone has heard of the wedding dress that got to Guatamala. Well, if you had nothing else, you could use a wedding lace for mosquito nets. Material is probably not good for bandages etc. but could be used as a sun shelter or something.

Every disaster we are told this and every disaster it seems to take longer to get goods to the people when other people..as in Katrina when that is all we heard..send money, don't send old wedding dresses..when people with trucks full of water were turned away. It makes no sense. It is anal. It is a death sentence for some people. The minute the military lands or the Red Cross sets up, shoo the unwanted people away. They will have plenty of customers a few feet away from the Red Cross stations or a few miles into the hills.

Ask Hurricane Sandy survivors how long they had to wait..and that was in a major set of cities surrounded by other cities that could have gotten through by train, bus etc....you can not wait for these charities..they take too long in many cases.. They can not do it. Help must come from all around.