So, I think what we have in Haiti is the definition of "Worst Case Scenario" for large scale emergencies. Katrina was a fender-bender by comparison and at every possible level from the scale of the destruction to the inability of the locals to do anything at any level to prepare for it.

As I look at the media - and the cover of todays NY Daily News literally brought me to tears (see slide #52 here - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...ST2010011401110 )

- I am compelled to bring to the attention of this list some of the captions I've read from disturbing images:

"A Haitian man tries to rescue a teacher trapped amid the debris of the earthquake as he crawls past a deceased schoolgirl at Ecole St. Gerard."

"In the period before intensive relief efforts hit Haiti, residents are forced to seek refuge from the earthquake's effects wherever possible."

"Men remove the body of a girl from the ruins of a building in their Port-au-Prince neighborhood. Haitians frantically dug out family members by hand and piled bodies on street corners, as clusters of bloodied and dazed survivors pleaded for help."

"Survivors stand on the roof of a demolished house in Port-au-Prince. With thousands of people missing, dazed survivors in torn clothes wandered through rubble, as more than 30 aftershocks rocked the Haitian capital where more than two million people live, most in the grip of poverty."

"People come to the aid of a wounded man. Thousands of people gathered in public squares late into the night, singing hymns and weeping."

So - what's missing from these stories?

Well, the looting, the violence for one.
Where is it? This is a poor nation - the prison collapsed and the violent inmates escaped. They have a military that's just barely above a mob of thugs, yet (so far) no widespread violence or reports of localized incidents.

What I've been seeing is people with nothing more than their hands pulling concrete off of people. The next year is going to be a hell of proportions we can't imagine - I have a friend who has done aid work down there and on a bright sunny day, it's a hellish existence, so now it's something beyond what we can imagine. But it seems that people are helping people.