How Harris County Officials Flouted the Red Cross's Bureaucratic Rules to Get Shelters Rolling

[TexasTowelie]

The reports started trickling in Sunday, August 27, at the Harris County Emergency Operations Center: People were showing up at shelters across the county — but at some, there was no food, no water, no shower supplies.

The reports were landing on Laurie Christensen’s desk and, in many ways, disturbing her: Here all the government officials were, camped out at the EOC with their coffee and meals and snacks, she thought, yet the people who had just been evacuated on boats and were showing up at shelters with nothing but wet clothes on their backs were waiting on bottled water?

Christensen, the assistant chief of operational support services with the Harris County Fire Marshal’s Office, went over to the American Red Cross station within the building to ask what was going on. Shelters were popping up all over the city and county as faith-based leaders and schools and just regular folks opened up their doors to help. The Red Cross had both supplies and volunteers. Couldn’t the organization get both of those key resources over to these locations in need?

The answer, she would find, was unfortunately no.

“They didn’t necessarily have the trucks to deliver the supplies,” said Christensen, who was in charge of organizing many of the deliveries to shelters. “When they did get the trucks, they didn’t have the drivers. It would take 24 to 36 hours to even get people approved to man the shelters and get them there. Well, we didn't have that kind of time in this emergency.”

Read more: http://www.houstonpress.com/news/the-red-cross-had-a-lot-of-rules-during-harvey-that-harris-county-was-disinclined-to-follow-9816085

[Warpy]

1. So the Red Cross was standing around with their thumbs jammed up their butts

and their arms wrapped up in red tape. Looks like their bureaucrats are going to have to review the words "disaster" and "emergency."

Sheesh.