One Year After
Facing South links to the Gulf Coast Reconstruction Watch report, One Year after Katrina [PDF] that highlights some good, a lot of bad, and way too much ugly 12 months after this disaster.
Scout of First Draft has returned to New Orleans and has been posting videos to remind people of what has and hasn’t happened.
Anntichrist S. Coulter of Blonde Sense writes of her experiences in What I remember, one of the strongest memories being the total failure of the Red Cross for days as it waited for the Feds to tell them they could help.
Despite my personal aversion to the Salvation Army for some of its policies, an aversion that means I will not support their normal operations, when it comes to a disaster, that’s where I send my money. The Salvation Army goes in and goes to work feeding people and helping them out, without waiting for government permission.
4 comments
Absolutely right! On both points. The Salvation Army is stalwart when it comes to disaster relief. They were first out and last to leave on Pensacola Beach after Opal (’95), Georges (’98) and Ivan (’95). They came with needed water and food relief when most were without the means to get their own and were effectively trapped on the island. Whatever the Salvation Army’s religiosity, there was no prosyletizing — just humanitarian generosity.
By contrast, I am sorry to say, locally the American Red Cross has been a consistent embarassment after each and every disaster I’ve witnessed. They spend more time and energy soliciting donations from just-ravaged homeowners than they do offering to help. To be sure, some beach residents are wealthy; and after a couple of those storms a few Ebeneezer Scrooges on the beach may have been lucky enough not to need much help — they probably should have contributed something to help their neighbors — but it was bad form to say the best of it. It’s left a lasting disaste for the local American Red Cross with many.
That’s the only way you can judge the groups, by performance.
I know people in the local Red Cross, and my feeling is that they have become part of the governmental structure with all of the government’s problems. They have become more interested in raising money than providing service.
Indeed, I’m not a fan of the Salvation Army’s wonky religious beliefs, but they do ten times more than the American Red Cross ever does, every day. They walk the walk, they don’t just talk the talk. Whether you like their beliefs or not, ya gotta admire them for walking the walk.
-BT
That’s the reason they’re on my sidebar. I send them money when there’s a disaster, because they will spend it on the disaster.