donating money to Katrina victims

After lurking the forums for 3 years i finally decided to open an account to start a discussion.
I live in germany and play poker for a few years now, every year i take an average month and donate the money, mainly because playing poker is tax free here.
I have a few thoughts i try to share and get a lil' help from you guys. My donation will be around $2500 and i am going to donate to some cause anyways.
Donating money to some organization in Africa vs. America (hurricane victims):
according to Slansky a buck a day is enough to safe a kid from starving in Africa whereas you need something like $20 in America. I know this kind of calculation (one life vs another) is a moral dilemma that is not possible to solve, so i try another approach.
Is the help wanted or needed?
I've seen the terrifying devastation mainly on CNN. At first it looked like the hurricane after being downgraded to 4 bypassed N.O. to the east and everything was ok and under control. A few hours later there was this levee breach and things started getting worse. Though the destruction is massive will you need the help to rebuild N.O: or to at least give shelter to the homeless? The only thing i could imagine that you really might need should be specialized troops and water clearing facilities. We have roughly 100 dogs trained to find buried victims in germany and a good amount of technical facilities that we are able to airlift. These were already offered by our government w/o a response yet.
The second thing is, if the help is indeed needed or at least can improve the situation, is the help wanted? I don't mean is it wanted by your government or anything. I'm asking you guys. Would you rather stay on your own, handle the problem (which you sure will do) or do you prefer some assistance that is more than a letter telling you we're sorry too?
So in general USA is #1 in the world economy and it can't expect help from countries like indonesia or thailand. But should it expect help from #2-#20 or the G8? Would you expect help from the people living there (money) or would you expect special facilities that only governments could provide (rescue troops, doctors, technical facilities).

Thx for your help, my thoughts are with you in Lousiana and Mississippi area

[Frills]

Right now anything helps

[young nut]

Well, I do not believe that those affected areas need much foreign aid in the form of manpower or untility resources. But I do believe that any money donations, whether they be domestic or foreign, would be helpful to the charity organizations leading the recovery in the Gulf.

It seems that the most important needs right now is sustaining lives and then finding displaced families places to live. Many of these people have lost everything they have ever owned. We have a sufficient amount of manpower and resources to carry out the recovery efforts, but I think what is needed is additional funding to these organizations. That is why President Bush announced to anyone wanting to help out that the best thing for them to do is to donate money to any of those organizations in that area.