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I never donate money to the Red Cross and I never will.

Red Cross bureaucracy causing frustrations

By Billy Gunn

(318) 487-6378 It's been a week since Hurricane Katrina evacuees
started arriving, dazed and heartbroken, fearing for loved ones and
what the future holds.

Many escaped with little clothing, their kids and pets in tow, not
much money in their pockets, jobs vanquished.

They grew roots quickly wherever in Cenla they landed: small churches
and campgrounds, at least one hotel that let them live in lobbies and
fed them.

It was the closest thing to home they've had, and Central Louisiana
welcomed them with bountiful generosity.

However, some of the refugees and those who have helped them are
frustrated with the Red Cross and its intractable bureaucracy, its
tendency to look to the rule book before taking a step, whether it be
registering evacuees for shelters and getting help from sorely needed
volunteers.

Also, the Red Cross-mandated migrating of evacuees from small shelters
to large is ripping some from the small venues where they feel safe to
much larger ones where people are placed hundreds to a room with no
privacy and a shortage of bathrooms.

Leann Murphy, CEO of the American Red Cross of Central Louisiana, said
her agency is in "crisis mode," they're doing the best they can and
that she understands the frustrations of evacuees and volunteers
alike.

Just walk in the Red Cross' command central on Jackson Street, and one
encounters a house almost mad: volunteers dodging each other, cellular
phones' different tones sing, a closed door for a much-needed private
moment.

But the enormity of the crisis, the influx of refugees (on Saturday
the number at approved Red Cross shelters in Central Louisiana was
6,000, with thousands more staying elsewhere), doesn't seem to bring a
change in Red Cross procedures.

'Ridiculous'

"The Red Cross, they are ridiculous," said Tim Murry, a manager at
Alexandria's Holiday Inn Convention Center, where 100 to 200 evacuees
have lived since Katrina's landfall.

The hotel, like many other places with no Red Cross assistance, has
sheltered and fed the southeastern Louisiana residents, or former
residents, since they arrived: some yesterday, some a week ago.

Murry said he and Raj Patel, whose family owns the inn, on Friday
tried to get the temporary tenants registered with the Red Cross but
were met with resistance because of the emergency agency's steadfast
adherence to its rules.

Before registering, the hotel would have to demand that evacuees
leave, then they'd have to find a registration center and fill out a
form supplied by a certified Red Cross volunteer, Murry said.

As a compromise, Murry and Patel offered to bring registration forms
to the hotel and have evacuees fill them out there to keep their
tenants, many of whom have not a buck for gasoline, off the road.

And, they said, the Alexandria Riverfront Center is connected to the
Holiday Inn, just steps away.

The Riverfront is one of four big Red Cross shelters in Rapides Parish
that continues to take on evacuees; two busloads of New Orleans
evacuees arrived Friday night.

But those staying at the Holiday Inn, where in banquet rooms they've
made makeshift beds out of chairs, couldn't walk up stairs and
register, Murry said.

"I just said screw it. I'm keeping them," Patel said. "The important
thing is that they register with FEMA."

FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is a critical link to
those displaced and needing federal assistance.

Evacuees at the Holiday Inn said Red Cross volunteers did come and
tell them about the procedures and what the agency required.

It wasn't a good exchange, said those who've constructed boundaries
where families can keep a semblance of privacy in the inn's banquet
room.

The Red Cross volunteer "came barging in here and said that we're
destructing the hotel," said Christina Rosa of Metairie, who didn't
remember the volunteer's name. "They said the hotel does not want
you."

"We had problems with the Red Cross being kinda rude to us," said
Sharon Sam of New Orleans.

Both women said the generosity of Central Louisiana and especially
Patel and the Holiday Inn staff was a godsend: all were fed, local
pastors came by to see check on them, local Salvation Army volunteers
supplemented their needs, they felt safe.

But, Marco Sosa said, "This changed a lot of people's mind about the
Red Cross."

Riverfront Center

In the Riverfront Center, hundreds lay on cots and milled around in
the over-cooled complex Saturday, and Marion Smith missed the smaller
confines of Northwood Elementary, where she and other St. Bernard
Parish evacuees had stayed.

"I loved it there," she said. "It's so crowded here."

Then Cynthia Jate, who drove the St. Bernard bus passengers to safety,
told Smith, "I got hold of your son. Pack your bags, he's coming (from
Houston) to get you."

Stunned and teary, Smith said nothing, just listened.

"He said he's been to Marksville to Mississippi, Lafayette, lookin'
for you," Jate said. "He's so tickled."

Jate told other St. Bernard residents "anything's better than here.
You don't know these people.

"All the St. Bernard people, I'm trying to get them out," said Jate,
clearly in charge.

A volunteer
Leatha Basco also is mad at the Red Cross.

Though disabled, she thought she could do something, anything, for
refugees pouring in from the southeastern part of the state.

So, she left Forest Hill Friday morning and drove to the Rapides
Parish Coliseum's Exhibition Hall, one of the big-venue Red Cross
shelters, the one landmark she knew how to get to.

She put in a couple of hours, cleaning the restrooms and helping by
lending her cellular phones to refugees desperate to find loved ones
and wanting news on their homes.

Basco then attended training, where "they said that if you can't put
in eight, 12, 24 hours (at a time), they don't want you. I just got up
and walked out."

"There's a lot of people out there that give a little time," she said.
"I guess I'm good enough to clean the toilet but not good enough for
anything else."

Murphy, the Red Cross CEO, said her manpower resources are stretched
thin, and that might deviate from agency rules and let volunteers work
shorter hours.

The minimum-hours rule, she said, is in place for more orderly
scheduling.

Billy Gunn at "The Town Talk"? I have not found any similar stories on the
net.

Regardless, The Town Talk continues to carry a Red Cross donation banner on
their webpage.

Interesting.

I gave the Red Cross a second chance (after their 9-11 fiasco) and donated
to them for hurricane relief.

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