On the recordMarch 10, 2010
This has been a particularly difficult period of time for all of us as we witnessed the victims of these two enormous tragedies attempt to repair the devastation that resulted from two of the largest earthquakes that we have seen in recent times. As we laid witness to the victims of the Haiti earthquake in January, I had a chance a couple of weeks ago to see for myself the magnitude of the devastation. As somebody who was on the scene shortly after the tsunami 5 years ago, I will say that what I saw in Haiti not only rivaled that, but was actually worse than anything I had seen in Banda Aceh or Buket or in Sri Lanka. Then, just a few weeks later, we had an earthquake even larger, an 8.8, rock the country of Chile. But through these tragedies, one thing is abundantly clear, and that is the generosity and compassion of the American people being as strong as ever. It is hard to explain, really, the impact that we see of these dedicated volunteers on the ground, moving to provide services that in some cases were not available at all prior to the tragedy. Then looking at the earthquake in Chile last week, the outpouring of American support is even more remarkable, given the fact that everybody put all these resources just a few days before into Haiti. Clearly, there is no compassion fatigue on the part of the American public.
