Relief From Mitch Never Arrived

Three months after Hurricane Mitch devastated Central America, much of the life-saving supplies donated by Americans to help people there sits undelivered in warehouses in the U.S.

CBS News Correspondent Vince Gonzales reports.

Nicaraguan Consul General Silvio Medez walks past tons of life-saving supplies needed by people in his homeland. Almost 700 tons of supplies, from baby food to medicine, are here waiting to be delivered to victims of Hurricane Mitch.

But Medez is walking through a warehouse in Los Angeles and, three months after it started pouring in, the relief supplies are still in the United States.

Silvio points out that approximately one million displaced people in Nicaragua still need help.

Across Central America, it is estimated, $10 billion in aid is needed to repair the damage left behind by the deadly hurricane. Wide areas of Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala were left in ruins when Mitch swept through in late October of last year. An estimated 10,000 Central Americans were killed.

When it first happened, the scenes of devastation led to an outpouring of compassion. Nearly 1,500 tons of supplies in all were donated.

The volume quickly overwhelmed the Nicaraguan relief effort. There were, in fact, too many donations, and no way to get it to the people who needed it.

What he needs now, the consul general says, are volunteers to sort and pack the supplies, and money to fly containers of it to Central America.

Some supplies have reached the region, much of it from private relief agencies who have paid commercial shippers to deliver the supplies. The private agencies complain that U.S. government programs that might help are too slow and require too much red tape.

"We had medical supplies sitting there that we couldn't ship because the government wanted us to count, bottle by bottle," says Veronica Sanchez, of the Port of San Francisco. "That was outrageous."

So, the food sits wasting, and the medical supplies are reaching their expiration dates. Relief experts say it's a common problem in disasters like this.

Alan Parachini, of the Community Foundation, notes that part of the problem is that the donations that are received are not necessarily what is needed most. "What people have to give, and give from the heart, may not be, and often is not, what is needed there," he says.

But the Nicaraguans insist that the donations that have been made will be welcomed by a grateful nation, if only they can get the money and volunteers they need to get them there.