The debit card handout @ Astrodome is RED CROSS$$$, NOT FEMA!

[elehhhhna]

September 08, 2005
Red Cross debit cards
Faced with a wait of a week or more for debit cards from FEMA, Houston's evacuees are jumping at the chance for debit cards handed out by the Red Cross.

A mile-long line was snaking into Reliant Center this morning, and the Red Cross hasn't even made an announcement about its plans yet. Most of those in line said they received appointment times last night.

For now, the Red Cross is only confirming that the debit cards are different than the ones to be provided by the federal government, but the Red Cross cards are already popping up in Reliant Park.

Those registered at the city's four megashelters -- the Astrodome, the Reliant Center, Reliant Arena and the George R. Brown Convention Center -- are reportedly eligible to receive the card, which will carry balances of up to a couple thousand dollars, depending on a family's size and the children's age.

http://blogs.chron.com/domeblog/

[SmokingJacket]

1. The Red Cross already has a debit system in place for its

volunteers; it would be easy I think to expand it it for evacuees.

That said, FEMA better get its ass in gear.

[bushisanidiot]

2. No, they didn't already have it in place.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/03/AR2005090301483_pf.html

Unfamiliar Tasks For an Organization Used to Disaster

Sunday, September 4, 2005; A28

The government is calling on the American Red Cross to take on a technological challenge the dimensions of which it has never before confronted.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency told the organization famous for blood drives and providing blankets to set up Internet kiosks in nearly 200 shelters scattered across the hurricane-stricken Gulf Coast, many of them still without power. It must put in a phone system so that people displaced by the storm can report that they're alive. And it is expected to create a digital mortuary to gather the names of the dead.

Along with volunteers to organize soup kitchens, the Red Cross is dispatching engineers to set up wireless networks and trucks outfitted with satellite equipment that will allow isolated shelters to communicate with the rest of the world.

The challenge in the devastated region is like that faced by an army creating a communications system in a war zone. For the Red Cross, it is a new role, and one for which it is not wholly prepared.

The Red Cross has no choice but to learn on the fly and do as it's asked, said Steven I. Cooper, who joined the Red Cross as chief information officer just three months ago, after 2 1/2 years in a similar position at the Homeland Security Department.

"We're being tasked with things that even I'm scratching my head at and saying, 'How are we going to do this?' " Cooper said. But he has been through crises before and somehow, he said, it will come together.

[SmokingJacket]

4. It has a debit card system, but not the telephone registration

system to expedite it.

"After the four hurricanes in Florida last year, Red Cross workers interviewed victims and issued debit cards worth up to $1,200 that could be used to buy food and clothing. That is not practical this time, when there may be as many as a million cases to process. The four hurricanes combined meant 73,000 victims for the organization to help..."

Thanks for the link: it shows that FEMA is asking the Red Cross to do what IT SHOULD be doing. Crazy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Lisa0825]

3. Shelters outside the Houston area need help...

They are not getting these cards.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=4694718&mesg_id=4694718

[mod mom]

5. FEMA Money is going to Hallibuton.

[mod mom]

6. self delete