Editor's Note: Thursday’s American Morning viewers offered various suggestions for relief efforts in the aftermath of Haiti’s earthquake on Tuesday evening. All eagerly awaited reports of active participation by the international community to provide supplies and medical attention, and some expressed frustration as the delay. Others reflected on the destruction in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and wondered about the needs of that community still in dire straits, so many years later.

• Janice: If possible, couldn't planes be used to inform the people in Haiti of contact areas for medical help – food, etc. The type of banners used at the beach for advertising? This would be a way everyone could see it.

• Paul: please suggest to the us gov. to start air drops of small food/water, may be little parachute on the boxes or bags, this will help not to have run over each other or riot on the trucks when they try too deliver it !!!!! it going too get real bad send in troops if we have any?

• Carrie: Why doesn't the US load up all the FEMA trailers they're trying to sell on a huge freighter and send them all to Haiti? I know there have been complaints about the trailers, but they are at least shelter and better than a lot of those people's homes were before the quake.

• Susan: Haiti Suggestions: 1. Supply planes should be flying in day or night, one right after the other. Light the runway with tires. It works in other places. 2. TENTS!! Thousands of tents need to set up immediately for all those people on the streets. Tents, with food, clothes and medical supplies. Thank you for all you do!

• Alberto: With the Province of Guantanamo less than 150 miles away from the disaster zone in Haiti, with tens of empty school buildings capable of housing 500-600 person each, thousands of highly trained healthcare and other professionals, hundreds of thousands of hurricane victims lay exposed to a crude environment, threat of epidemics, only because of a lack of political will of international institutions and powerful governments unwilling to work out an agreement that could enable tens of thousands of victims to find temporary safe haven in Cuba. What will we do in the next 48 hour when massive transmissible diseases spreads like wildfire through Port au Prince.

• Ronald: tell me whether Cuba has sent its massive amount of doctors and medicine is arriving to Haiti. I recall, Cuba offering to send a massive amount of doctors to USA with tons of medicine but the State Dept denied entry to them for the victims of Katrina. Now, will Cuba get there.

• Sandy: it's wonderful to see the world come together to help Haiti, my first thought was where was all these people when Katrina hit us. It's been almost five years and our own country isn't put back together. New Orleans still doesn't have a hospital. People are still homeless. The schools haven't been rebuilt. The people affected by Katrina were put through hell, floating dead in the same water other people had to walk through to try to get to some kind of safety. No they weren't buried under rubble, they were dying in sewage water, heat stroke, and thirst for Gods sake! Where was our own government, watching it on T.V And the rest of the world where were they .Helping people in need is a wonderful thing. Taking care of our own should come first. If we have all these resources why isn't the effects of Katrina fixed?

What do you think of the relief efforts in Haiti? How do you think this compares to the mobilization of efforts for Hurricane Katrina? What ideas do you suggest for relief in the devastated nation?

Many families are waiting desperately to hear from their loved ones missing in Haiti. In Florida, twelve students and two faculty members from Lynn University were on a humanitarian aid trip when the earthquake struck. The hotel they were staying in was flattened. The university says 7 of the 12 students have reported to the American embassy in Port-au-Prince and are safe, Julie Prudhomme is one of those students. Her parents, Steve and Joan Prudhomme spoke with CNN's Kiran Chetry Thursday.

As the death toll rises, the true extent of the damage is difficult to assess. The next twenty four hours is crucial for survivors. What is America doing to help? Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton spoke with CNN's John Roberts on U.S. relief efforts live on American Morning Thursday.

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Port-au-Prince, Haiti (CNN) - Their clothes tattered and caked in dirt, their backs sore from clawing through concrete and debris, residents in earthquake-flattened Port-au-Prince waited Thursday for signs that help is on its way.

They slept out in the open on mattresses and cardboard boxes. Those whose homes hadn't been reduced to rubble refused to go inside, fearing aftershocks that could send the structures tumbling.

Some sang and clapped to keep their spirits up. Others wailed. The sounds of gunshots sometimes pierced the air.

"Hundreds of people are all hunkered down for the night, passing time and burning tires to light up the night," Gwenn Goodale Mangin said in the city of Jacmel.

The city - like Port-au-Prince, the capital 25 miles (40 kilometers) away, and other communities in the impoverished island-nation - has been without power and water since Tuesday's devastating 7.0-magnitude quake.

The quake affected roughly one in three Haitians - about 3 million people, the Red Cross estimated. It was so strong that it was felt in Cuba, more than 200 miles away.

"I watched as house after house just pancaked down, right in front of my eyes," said Bob Poff of the Salvation Army, who was driving a pickup down a mountain, into Port-au-Prince, at the time.

Felix Augustin, the Haitian consul general to the United Nations, said more than 10,000 were dead, but President Rene Preval said it was too early to put a number to the casualties.

Government officials feared the death toll might eventually run into the six figures

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