THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

A country as large and rich as the United States has little problem collecting the necessary supplies needed for relief efforts following Hurricane Harvey. But the big road block lies in how you find who needs what, where and getting it to them when all the normal channels and roads we take for granted have been destroyed, disrupted or simply overloaded?

More than 400 trailers packed with water, food, tarps and generators line a vacant airstrip in the farmland just northeast of San Antonio that has been transformed into a bustling logistics hub. Crews from the Department of Defense and the Federal Emergency Management Agency are working to dispatch aid to storm victims.

But the difficulty of responding to a major natural disaster was apparent Tuesday afternoon as more trucks of supplies rolled in, and almost none rolled out. Roads were tied up, needs were still not known. Four semis sent to supply a massive shelter at NRG Field in Houston, where N.F.L. games and rodeos are usually held, were idling at a roadblock, unable to deliver food and water.

“It’s been a constant stream of trucks in,” Steven Bouie, a FEMA employee in an orange vest, said as he checked in a long line of trucks arriving. “Now we’re working on a big push to get it all out to people who need them.”

Disaster planners have been preparing for years for a storm like Hurricane Harvey, and repeated hurricanes on the Gulf Coast have given them plenty of practice, but the scale of this storm has pushed many emergency workers beyond their limits. Operators at the 911 system were overwhelmed, sending trapped residents to turn to social media. Police and firefighters got help from armada of citizen bass boats and Jet Skis.

More than 30,000 people are in 230 shelters across Texas, but FEMA cautioned that the number would likely rise sharply. More than 50 counties in Texas and Louisiana have been impacted in some way by flooding, FEMA said. The Coast Guard continues to receive more than 1,000 calls an hour for help. More than 200,000 people have registered for FEMA assistance.

It is times like this where the military's experience getting supplies into war torn areas and following up to restore some semblance of normalcy can be put to best use.

The military has sent in helicopters, cargo planes, trucks, amphibious vehicles, even special operations Marines in inflatable rafts, and were mobilizing hundreds of other troops.

Federal authorities say lessons learned from the often glaring missteps in the response to Katrina in 2005 have helped them to better prepare for the disaster unfolding in Texas. But many were reluctant to tout the accomplishment with the storm still swirling off the coast.

“I think we don’t know what we don’t know.” said Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan, as he walked into the command briefing of Army North, the military command in charge of homeland defense. So far, he said, troops and federal aid workers were doing all they could.

At a long table surrounded by maps and video screens, an Army North team took turns briefing the general on the military response: 400 deep water trucks moving through Houston’s flooded neighborhoods; a fleet of Black Hawk helicopters running night rescues when civilian aircraft often cannot fly; satellite communications teams moving in to crucial locations.

Crews had whisked hundreds of stranded people to dry land. Air Force planes were getting ready to evacuate hospitals in storm-crippled neighborhoods. Looting remained low, but the National Guard was ready to step in to help police if necessary.

“We’ve got Ospreys,” a Marine officer said, referring to tilt-rotor aircraft that flies like an airplane but can land vertically. “We’ll stage them in Florida in case we need them when the storm hits Louisiana.”

And now the relief begins. It will get to most of those who need it. The biggest problem will be those who need it thinking that they should have received it yesterday because they only know what they don't have. They have no idea about what it takes to get it to them. And all this before the flood waters have receded.