Tracy Kidder

In the first days of the worst natural disaster this hemisphere has witnessed in recent history, much attention and criticism has focused on what has been most visible: the logistical bottleneck at the Port-au-Prince airport. With one runaway and the control tower destroyed, a facility that normally handled 30 daily flights has struggled to accommodate some 200 air shipments a day. The amount of international assistance has appeared to overwhelm the Haitian capacity to receive it.