More follow up.

A good reminder: bigger is not better when you need to be swift, targeted, and flexible in working with what you've got to help where you can. Bigger, for the most part = ... s l o w e r.

By SHAILA DEWAN and LIZ ROBBINS

MIAMI — Days after the United States military suspended medical evacuations of critically injured earthquake victims from Haiti, officials in Washington continued to search for ways to resume the flights on Saturday, including looking to states beyond Florida, which has taken in most of the patients.

The military flights — usually C-130s carrying Haitians with spinal cord injuries, burns and other serious wounds — ended on Wednesday and even as officials worked through the weekend to get them started again, there was confusion over why the flights were halted in the first place.

“There has been no policy position from anyone to suspend evacuee flights,” said Tommy Vietor, a White House spokesman. “This situation arose as we started to run out of room.”

Florida officials, including the governor, offered other reasons.

John Cherry, the external affairs director of Florida’s Division of Emergency Management, said that the state was willing to take the patients, but that the flights stopped after Gov. Charlie Crist asked the federal government to coordinate flight plans and to ensure that the state would eventually be reimbursed for assisting the federal effort.

“There’s a lack of coordinated response from the federal government on this,” Mr. Cherry said in a telephone interview on Saturday. “We don’t know who’s in charge. They take it up their chain and it seems like things are going to a black hole. We’re saying, ‘let’s coordinate.’

Tick tock... tick tock... Time really is of the essence in situations like this. Where is the leadership to get those flights started up again, if indeed America finds we can still afford to help?