Good for Teaching Swimming, Blood Donations, Not Much Else

The Red Cross is its own disaster: Relief agency stumbles again after Mississippi flood
by Sarah Smith, ProPublica
Saturday, May 21, 2016 11:00 AM EST

Internal emails exchanged among state officials as the devastation unfolded document a profound lack of confidence in the charity’s ability to respond to disasters as well as problems that have persisted since Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast a decade ago.

Mississippi Emergency Management Director Lee Smithson told his staff on April 6 that the Red Cross’ response was “marginal at best.”

The charity “is made up of great people who want to help,” Smithson wrote in another email. “The problem is their inability to develop tactical plans for their relief operations.”

Red Cross spokeswoman Suzy DeFrancis said in a statement that the Red Cross is “proud of our performance” during the March flooding.

ProPublica obtained the emails through an open records request. We previously reported on the Red Cross’ botched responses to Superstorm Sandy in 2012 and its failure to follow through on promises after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti.

The Mississippi emails also show the effects of deep cuts to the charity’s network of local chapters made by CEO Gail McGovern, who has struggled to get the Red Cross on stable financial footing since she took over the charity in 2008. The Red Cross closed several Mississippi chapters since McGovern became CEO. The downsizing hasn’t been limited to local offices. Last month, a Red Cross senior vice president sent an email informing his staff that the 106 positions in the Disaster Cycle Services arm would be cut to 89.
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Officials said in their emails that the lack of coordination is a longstanding problem. “The American Red Cross is running their own program and does not work with the local government,” Washington County’s emergency management director, David Burford, wrote in a March 21 email to the state emergency management agency. His county, right along the Mississippi River, was one of the hardest hit in the state. “The Red Cross has operated in this fashion for my entire career of 21 years and doesn’t seem to want to change their procedures and/or processes. I have seen and continue to see a large loss of resources due to duplications caused by the American Red Cross operating in this manner, and, as you know, resources are becoming more scarce with each passing day.”
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The lack of communication between the Red Cross and the locals may have led to an uncomfortable situation for the charity’s volunteers after the flooding earlier this year.

In the middle of March, a Red Cross staff member sent an email to his colleagues about what he viewed as a security situation.

A Red Cross emergency response vehicle and supply truck “were surrounded by [a] mob on 6th Street South in Greenville, MS,” Red Cross Chief Emergency Programs Officer David Kitchen wrote in an email to his colleagues, describing a predominantly African American part of town. “They had previously delivered [bulk distribution] items to a hard hit area and were in route on their second run (undoubtedly word spread quickly that some type of resources were there and a mob was waiting). Our volunteers dumped their load in fear for their lives.”

Mississippi Emergency Management Director Smithson, who was forwarded the email, wrote to his staff, “This is precisely the same issue I had with [the Red Cross] during Katrina. I mitigated the problem by developing a security plan.”

“(A) predominantly African American part of town.” Uh huh.