"Red Cross refuses to set up emergency storm shelters in New Orleans?"

[flpoljunkie]

By evening, the city's few escape routes were spectacularly clogged, and authorities acknowledged that hundreds of thousands of residents would not get out in time. The stranded will not be able to turn to the Red Cross, because New Orleans is the only city in which the relief agency refuses to set up emergency storm shelters, to ensure the safety of its own staff. Even if a 30-foot-high wall of water crashes through the French Quarter -- Maestri's worst-case scenario -- stranded residents will be on their own.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A20277-2004Sep14?language=printer
_________________

And we are asked by everyone to send money to this organization. Do people know this about the Red Cross? I find this extraordinary.

Tweety just reported that as of yesteday the Red Cross had received $72 million dollars in donations.

[Democrats_win]

1. NO money for you, RED Cross!

[alittlelark]

3. I stopped giving them $$$ 4 years ago. I'll donate blood, but no$$$

[LittleClarkie]

4. Oh, yeah, how about Blue Cross then

Hey, they are still among the only ones working, even Canadian Red Cross.

How were drowned Red Cross people also stranded and needing help going to do any good.

Right. Like anything with Red in it must be Republican and is therefore suspect. RED Cross indeed.

[flpoljunkie]

8. What part of the Red Cross refusing to build shelters do you not get?

These people were told to go to the Super Bowl and they were abandoned. They cannot get out of New Orleans to Baton Rouge or any of the other cities where the Red Cross has build emergency storm shelters.

[LittleClarkie]

9. What part of flooded don't you get

BUILD SHELTERS ON WHAT!?

[flpoljunkie]

11. The shelters could have been built near New Orleans, and plans made to get

people out of New Orleans, not send them to the Superdome with no food and no water and leave them to rot.

[John Q. Citizen]

10. And what about Apollo 13? The Red cross ALSO refused to build

a shelter on the moon!

Look if you don't want to contribute, don't, but trying to smear them on this is just bad form.

[Pirate Smile]

6. Give to the Salvation Army then.

http://www.salvationarmyusa.org/USNSAHome.htm

[flpoljunkie]

13. Some said Second Harvest does great work with low overhead. Link below.

http://www.secondharvest.org/

[whistle]

2. Why, because $72 million is no where near enough if only 15%

...is allowed to trickle down to actual victims.

[flpoljunkie]

5. Only 15% gets to those who need help? Are you serious?

[cami715]

7. I refuse to give to the Red Cross

Do you remember that after 9/11 it was revealed that a large portion of the money donated to the Red Cross was not used for victims but instead was placed in their general account?

[muwriter]

12. Um, there's a good reason for this. See floodwaters

There's nothing high enough in the city that would be considered a save haven for any length of time.

The hell that the hospitals and "last resort" shelters have become should make obvious why the Red Cross took this approach of not having any "shelters" in the city.

[flpoljunkie]

15. The Superdome was used as an emergency shelter and was w/o supplies.

This is unacceptable in a city where 100,000 people have been determined to have no way to evacuate in an emergency.

Could not the Red Cross set up shelters closer to the city than Baton Rouge? Those are the only shelters I've heard them talk about in Louisiana. Surely this cannot be.

[ovidsen]

14. Slander.

As muwriter points out, the Red Cross doesn't set up emergency shelters in New Orleans because there's no place to put them. This has been it's policy for years, and is mentioned in the 10/04 National Geographic article on Louisiana.(sorry, no link).

As for the allegation that 70% of donations go for so called "administration expenses", nothing could be further from the truth. 91 cents of every dollar given to the American Red Cross goes to relief projects.

For further information, go to this link for the non-profit Charity Navigator rating:

http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm/bay/search.summary/orgid/3277.htm

And give what you can.

[flpoljunkie]

16. For whatever reason, the Red Cross has indeed refused to set up shelters

in--or apparently anywhere near the city of New Orleans.