Word: debits
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...Reliant Center last Thursday afternoon. Before Hurricane Katrina, they lived in New Orleans's Lower Ninth Ward; now the closest thing they have to a home is a collection of cots and stuffed bags on the floor of the Astrodome. Waiting on line to apply for a Red Cross debit card, the couple heard a rumor that they needed a photo ID to qualify for a card. While Green remained in the queue with the well-behaved children, Clark rushed back to the Astrodome to search their belongings for some form of ID, returning several minutes later breathless and empty...
...around the giant hall set up for distributing the cards and found an empty desk where two smiling Red Cross volunteers waited, Green and Clark worried that they'd be turned away. They weren't. After a brief interview that included completing some forms, Clark and Green, debit card in hand, turned their caravan of a family around and headed outside. Green wouldn't say how much they had received, but she looked crestfallen. ?It wasn't what I expected,? she said, her words betraying more bewilderment than anger. ?I'm not complaining. I'm grateful for everything...
...debit card distribution is a case in point. Last week, when FEMA and the Red Cross each announced plans to give evacuees cards worth up to $2000, the Reliant Center was overrun by storm victims from inside the facility and from shelters throughout the city. Fistfights erupted along the lines that quickly snaked around the complex, and people fainted from heat exhaustion, prompting officials from both agencies to evict the evacuees who had stormed in from outside facilities, and shut down the system for the day. The Red Cross resumed its giveaway the following day with less chaos, though...
Where is the recovery money going? Congress earmarked $23 billion last week for medical care, household items and temporary housing for evacuees. More than 200,000 trailers have been purchased. The government, which has scrapped plans to give $2,000 debit cards to thousands of hurricane victims, is capping total aid per household at $26,000, and almost all the rest of the money will go to federal agencies to work on the relief effort. --By Perry Bacon...
Just when things seemed to be stabilizing, another FEMA fiasco would light up the news wires. Last Thursday, as the Red Cross began distributing its own debit cards, thousands stood for hours in the 93° heat outside the Astrodome in Houston for FEMA cards that never came. A day earlier, Brown had heralded his agency's cards as a way to "empower" survivors "to start rebuilding their lives." But the agency scrapped the plan late Thursday, saying it would be more efficient for the government to deposit funds directly into evacuees' bank accounts...