My friends run a small rapid response disaster team organization. They've been some of the first on the scene of a lot of the most recent disasters, including t

My friends run a small rapid response disaster team organization. They've been some of the first on the scene of a lot of the most recent disasters, including the 2011 Japan tsunami, and the 2010 Haiti earthquake (they are also in Texas now). They've brought back depressing stories about the amount of bureaucracy and thumb-twidiling that goes on during the first couple days of a disaster, where large organizations are struggling to coordinate efforts. In one case, an entire plane-load of bottled water from Red Cross could not be distributed because they didn't have the "approval" from higher up. Similar to startups, small orgs can be much more nimble than their incumbent counterparts.