Do Not Self-Deploy...

I just finished gathering the gear I will need to bring to Joplin tomorrow. After a week of seeing images of destruction, watching scouts raise money, hearing stories from my cousins (who went to Joplin 13 hours after the storm) I was aching to go; and now I'm going. Truth be told, I was jealous of the first response team. There I was, only 55 miles from the need, and I couldn't really do anything about it. Non-medical volunteers were asked to not 'self-deploy' and then they began to issue permits. So many of my acquaintances had been there and back, and well I just really wanted to go. But now I'm going. I'm going with a warning that I may find a victim, alive-but most likely dead. I'm going knowing that neighbors are stealing from neighbors. I no longer envy the first response workers. It takes amazing endurance to do what they have had to do for the last five days, in severe weather no less.
I'm going, and I will keep going and going and going... Joplin you've had an amazing first response teams (my hat's off to them), but you're going to have a awesome second, third (and so on) response crew!