MDinana's comment about the helos is right. That is exactly how our troops were doing it. I saw the videos.

To Sodak about Art's comment on supplies stored.
With about 10% unemployment in USA and another 10% on some form of welfare I consider Art's guess to be a fairly good ballpark estimate. It might be ridiculous but I would think the numbers might be worse in some of Americas poorer cities, especially if you consider fuel and water.
I think even if there were supplies held, in a quake like that a lot of them would have been lost under building collapses anyhow.

It seems to me a major lesson about this incident is about the lack of any govt ready or able to respond in Haiti itself, so while I would love to comment on the effects of having a crappy corrupt government before a disaster like this quake happened, the risk of waxing political is to much for me to make such a comment...

So just assume my comment was something radical and I will refrain from saying it.