I gained an appreciation for logistics when they started making us do table exercise disaster drills (Think a model city on a huge room sized table with little buildings and model vehicles and whatnot - like a millionaire's model train set on steroids). Anyway, the exercise consists of you being the incident commander for some horrible thing that's happening in the city and you have to fix the problem, and all the resulting problems that happen, by directing the resources to where it needs to go. It's you, some radios (with people on the other end in another room role playing your counterparts) and some people who manipulate the model to illustrate where everything is going on.
They started us out on small stuff; riots, localized flooding, widespread power outages, etc. And eventually we built up to complete disasters like hurricanes, widespread armed insurrection with a power outage thrown in.
It teaches that logistics is the end-all and be-all of disaster response. It's not enough to have somebody willing to convoy a hundred trucks of food and water. You have to know what route is safe, identify a location for them to unload, provide shelter, fuel, food, water and protection for the people driving the trucks. You have to identify means of communication with them once they leave wherever they're coming from. And the list just keeps going on.
And like in real life, in the exercises there were always little gotcha's to mess with your mind. The radios go dead because the generator died. Or your fuel supply got hijacked and destroyed by some rioters. Or the one that made me fail one scenario because one of the role players decided to assert control over my incoming fire/rescue folks from other cities and direct them to all the wrong places.
Before they could start landing supplies in Haiti somebody had to fly in and set up communications and radar so the planes could land safely. Somebody had to identify unloading gear and space, temporary storage, a disbursing center, and security. Then they could start bringing in planes while someone else started working on where to send the stuff, how to get it there (Haiti's infrastructure is mostly dirt roads) keep the loads secure, keep the distribution centers secure, etc.
The thing for the average person to take from all of this is that unless it's a little bitty disaster in a small area, the chances of serious assistance coming to you within less than 72 hours is generally zero, nada and zip. Hurricanes, earthquakes, massive floods, basically anything that overwhelms your local responders, is going to be a huge logistical nightmare. You need to be able to provide your own food, water and shelter for at least three days.
