Forecast: accumulating exhaustion

Natural disasters | Weathering an alphabet's worth of storms, relief workers await relief | Priya Abraham

Sleepy and "semi-conscious" the morning after his seventh trip to the Gulf Coast in as many weeks, Gary Lundstrom could not promise he would be coherent for an interview. By now the international projects director for Samaritan's Purse and his staff should be shifting to delivering their annual Christmas shoeboxes. But the disasters aren't letting up.

Aid organizations nationwide and across the globe are stretched thin by the worst year they have seen of natural disasters. This has been the Atlantic's busiest storm season on record, and they can only hope it will end on its official deadline of Nov. 30. Such disaster responders are not there just when earthquakes or hurricanes first strike. They stick around to rebuild, and that means an ever-increasing workload as disasters pile up.