The Crisis Continues: The Math of the Aftermath

As a victim of Hurricane Katrina, I can honestly say that the Katrina Cash Crisis continues. The need to continue giving aid to victims of Hurricane must remain a priority. . . With the anniversary of the American Gulf Coastal devastation approaching, I feel the need to be honest with my readers and the people who donated their money to Red Cross and other charities. First of all, FEMA either gave the evacuees $2,000 for three months (& on the third month, the evacuee would receive $2,300) rent, total of $6,300 OR $10,000 (to get people through three or more months rent). This is totally unfair because FEMA should have paid each person $10,000 because it's not Hurricane evacuees needed more than that to get their lives back in order because most of them owned businesses and it's hard to find jobs.
 When we first were on our evacuation voyage, our first stop was to stay with a family friend in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Everyday my husband and I were out there everyday waiting to receive Red Cross VISA cards, I tell you no lie, we waited out there in lines full of people from New Orleans waiting to get checked on, those volunteers let in about twenty people and then reported they ran out of cards. While we out waiting to be seen at any charity for evacuees, people who were from Baton Rouge lied to these volunteers' face and said they were from New Orleans leading real New Orleans people not to get a cent of charity after waiting for eight hours in the heat. After waiting another eight hours to contact the Red Cross over the phone we received $1,265.
 When my husband and I evacuated to Houston, Texas we were treated very differently than other Houstonians. My husband had trouble getting any job because he and I were from New Orleans. The mayor of Houston blamed the high crime rate on New Orleans which in reality the crime rate has been up since two years ago before Hurricane Katrina hit.   
 Billions have been spent in relief, but billions more are needed. Such is the scope of a storm that ranks among the most severe in modern North American history.
To this day, residents' lives are still wrecked. Vital services are still wanting. Homes and businesses remain unrepaired. The effort to do so is not lacking; far from it. The hard fact is that the resources available are still spread too thin.
Recently, the Washington Post conducted a survey to determine an accounting of the charitable aid that has been provided to date. The results are impressive, showing this to be the largest donation drive in American history. Almost $3billion has been raised and approximately $2 billion of that amount has already been disbursed.
It's a mind-jolt to grasp the concept that, even with a record level of heartfelt giving, only a dent has been made in improving lives there and that the remaining $1 billion will be impossibly stretched in order to have any overall impact. Very little has apparently slipped into administrative hubris. Virtually all monies, says the Post, have gone toward cash, food and temporary shelter, medical care, tarps for damaged homes and school supplies for displaced children.
Here are other facts which were determined by the Post's survey:
 The Red Cross , which was criticized for slow distribution of donations after the Sept.11, 2001, terrorist attacks, has given out 84 percent of its Katrina and Rita donations. Fifty cents of each donated dollar went out in cash to victims. One of the reasons the Red Cross ran out of money was because the Red Cross gave the money that was supposed to go to Hurricane Katrina went to September 11th Victims. I am not one to say that they don't deserve it but don't take from people who actually saw death before them, swam in toxic water with fetus, who were actually stranded around these shit for days and still no HELP furthermore to be robbed from what they needed. HELL NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 Six percent of contributions came in the form of supplies - building materials, food, water, clothing, heavy equipment - contributed mostly by corporations.
Fifty-six percent of remaining donations are controlled by faith-based organizations. They include such well-known institutions as Catholic Charities USA and the Salvation Army but also lower-profile groups like the United Methodist Committee on Relief and United Jewish Communities.
It's estimated that the American government will need to spend a minimum of $200billion, simply to rebuild infrastructure and re-establish basic services in the region. There will be budgets for housing grants, low-income food support and medical care, but longstanding parameters on those programs will still leave many hurricane victims out in the cold. Literally.
 Some of the Gulf states, such as Mississippi and Louisiana, were far from the richest in the USA before the disaster struck. Now, with much of their tax base blown away, their resources are hardly sufficient to cope with anything more than the most urgent requirements.
Americans should take great pride in going to amazing lengths to look after their own. That those being assisted are doing all they can to become self-sustaining again makes the act of donation feel even more rewarding.
It is still time to experience that feeling. There are many causes in life, but this one is about providing fundamental needs to people who are aching to provide for themselves. If you're visiting the Longer Life site, don't make those Red Cross boxes on each page fade into your background. Once a month, or more if you can, use them. When you're out on the town, instead of ordering an extra round of beer, wine or spirits, re-direct that amount to the Katrina relief fund. When you're in the store, instead of purchasing an extra snack item, re-direct that amount to the Katrina relief fund.
Those proceeds will be used for so much more by people who are grateful to receive because they have no other choice.
It's still difficult to comprehend that a few dollars can do so much good when billions are needed, but we can never 'massify' the human condition in the Gulf states or anywhere else. The few dollars you give will help one person, or one family, who will then be allowed a welcome moment of respite for at least another day.
 To them, your donation would seem like a million dollars. Maybe even a billion.
Comedian Chevy Chase, when he anchored the first Saturday Night Live faux-news desk, had a running joke that satirized, post-mortem, the endless medical updates provided by the public relations machine of a dying dictator ...
"Here's a bulletin from Spain: Doctors are reporting that Generalissimo Francisco Franco is holding fast in his valiant fight to remain dead!"
The point, of course, was that neither the Spanish public nor the global public at the time was ever fooled by the propaganda of Franco's terminal condition during his last days. The tweak also carried undertones that no government could overcome the forces of nature, no matter what it announced.
That brings us to the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
 Anyone who has been to the Gulf Coast says that the media images of the devastation there --- no matter how hard they try --- just cannot convey the scope of the disaster. Vast segments of the region have literally been blown back a couple of centuries, to a time when electricity, telephones, running water and the like were either a luxury or a futuristic concept. Usual conveniences such as food shopping are still a major challenge to many. Some jobs may have left with Katrina; like her, they may never return.
This doesn't look like it's going to get much better anytime soon, either.
 I thought of this while taking a second look at the pages on the Longer Life site, all of which include the American Red Cross public service ad which appeals for donations to their hurricane relief fund. The appeals are just as urgent and relevant today as they were when they were first posted. I sometimes wonder, though, if those who view them don't get so accustomed to their presence that they ultimately look past them. I know the plan at the Longer Life site is to keep them in place until all needs are met, which in my opinion, means the Red Cross will be a fixture on their pages for a long time to come.
The American government recently released over 100,000 pages of documents which dealt with their handling of the crisis. It's notable in the impression that they didn't give the matter much more attention than they would have if the affected area was a third-world country. Having said that, the sheer volume of funds required to repair and rebuild is staggering.
 For example, it's been cited in the Los Angeles Times that the costliest public works project to date was the shift of freeways in Boston to an underground route. The price tag was $14.6 billion, the time factor was 14 years and the object of the exercise was to move just under eight miles of roadway into a tunnel.
The Gulf Coast reclamation is going to involve much more than eight miles of tunneling.
It's been reported that the federal commitment to this task has already exceeded $62 billion. One third of that amount has already been deployed and it can fairly be said that its effects are hardly noticed. This total will be added to the federal deficit, of course, right along with the billions being spent to do whatever it is they currently say they're doing in Iraq. If the current administration holds fast to its pledge against raising taxes, the implication is that a host of cuts in other programs are inevitable.
Thus, Americans won't have to be located along the Gulf Coast to somehow share in its devastation. Among other things, some interest groups are now taking a close look at how funds are being utilized and allocated. Allegations of misappropriations and the like are sure to follow.
Contrast this state of affairs with the recent earthquake in Pakistan. The magnitude of that disaster was similarly breathtaking. If you missed it, the Richter scale measured the quake at 7.8 and an estimated 87,000 people were killed. Their government already depends upon the USA for much of its additional aid. It may be a while before they see anything significant to assist in this natural tragedy.
One city there will have additional help. It's coming in the form of lottery winnings. A gentleman named Ishan Khan hit it big while working in the USA as a taxi driver. He nailed a $55 million jackpot and took his winnings up front, netting over $32 million. Mr Khan moved back to his homeland, where that amount of money can spend like $1 billion and where he instantly became one of Pakistan's most wealthy private individuals.
It's obvious to Mr Khan that private assistance is necessary for relief efforts there to have any immediacy. His village, Batagram, lost 4500 citizens in the 8 Oct quake and surely, a good number of those were known to him. Here's the Associated Press account of his response to date:
"Just days before the earthquake, Khan was elected district nazim, or mayor, of Batagram. After the quake hit, he helped pull survivors from the rubble, and paid to get the most seriously injured to regional hospitals. He told pharmacists he would pay them later for dispensing all the medicine on their shelves. The bill came to 10 million rupees, almost $200,000.
"Khan has bankrolled a program to supply roofing materials to rebuild shattered homes. He bought 150 tents, some of which occupy land just outside his mansion with panoramic views of snowcapped peaks.
"Most important, Khan has emerged as a colorful and outspoken critic of local government corruption. In recent days, the blue-eyed nazim - who refers to himself simply as Khan - has dismissed the town's police chief and fired another official. Khan promises to continue the housecleaning. 'We have a calamity and people are lazy, unable to move,' he says. 'So I started firing people.'
"Relief workers are impressed. 'He's a take-charge person,' says Aziuddin Ahmad, who works with a Malaysian aid group."
With that record, I'm sure there would be a good number of towns along the Gulf Coast that would elect him to public office, too.
With so much money required, both public accountability and private incentive are imperative if the effects of these disasters are to be overcome. Let's hope that interest groups in both the USA and Pakistan monitor the former closely and with the greater good in mind.
Meanwhile, let's not let those Red Cross ads blend into the background. As Mr. Khan has exemplified, there is no more effective actions than those taken by personal incentive. Do whatever you can do to make sure your governmental representatives understand that accountability in dispersing relief funds is important to taxpayers and can shear years from the completion date of reclamation projects. More directly, anytime --- now or whenever, as this effort is going to take years to accomplish --- you have a bit of funds to spare, forsake the costs of a night on the town or its equivalent and click on the Red Cross ad.
Perhaps your donation won't come from winning the lottery, but the knowledge that you've helped a disaster victim in need will make it feel like you did.