Recovering and Rebuilding New Orleans (Rant)

[Drince88]

Two bits of rants - unfortunately, I don't have any links right now, but I'll see what I can do.

Red Cross: People who need assistance from the Red Cross, are having a hard time getting through to get it. Just an example: Slidell (suburb on the 'North Shore' of Lake Pontchartrain) has a 'drive through' Red Cross registration/assistance center because people can not get through on the Red Cross toll free number (multiple days of trying, hold for multiple hours are not unheard of). They are open from 9am-7pm and can handle about 1200 cars a day. At 5:40 this morning, they had more then 1200 cars in line already. (This is the second or third day of this - they only committed to doing it for 2 weeks)

Thanks to everyone who's donated to the Red Cross, but they need to work on their distribution for large-scale situations. Someone suggested that they might be slow in distributing funds because they want to keep some of the money they've received in reserve for future disasters. I HOPE that's not true (well, I know that they do not commit to dispersing all of the funds received 'in the name of Katrina and/or Rita' to victims of those disasters, but I hope they're not TRYING to go slow to allow them to hold some of the money back).

Workers being hired: I NEVER thought I'd say "I agree with Jesse Jackson" but I think I am saying that. They just interviewed a bunch of people hired by a cleanup company to work in New Orleans -- 8-10/hour, with meals and lodging -- from all over the country - and NONE of them are from New Orleans. The radio guys just asked each other - did they even GO into the shelters to offer this opportunity to people FROM New Orleans?

I understand the large contracts not going to Louisiana companies (My company has a large contract with the federal government, and although we have two Louisiana offices, we aren't classified as a 'Louisiana company' because our corporate headquarters are in Denver) - but the subs REALLY should be hiring local staff -- or if they're bringing large amounts of people in from elsewhere - ATTEMPT to find some locals who want the opportunity to come back (at least from Houston and other areas where large numbers of people were displaced to)! Yes, I am being idealistic in this, and almost deleted this whole part of the rant because of it - but it is really hard to imagine it was THAT hard to find people from New Orleans. Yea, they couldn't find them IN New Orleans - they just opened up part of New Orleans today for residents, but there's still a 'boil' order on the water - hopefully when that gets lifted and they're letting more residents in, THAT part will improve.

Ok - off to see if I can find some links...
Thanks for letting me rant.