Joe Becker
Joe Becker
hurricane large last learned number prepared steps taken
We've learned a lot in the last months. We have taken a large number of steps to be better this hurricane season. We will be more prepared for the worst-case scenario.
largest million night sheltered
We sheltered about 3.5 million people. The largest night was about 150,000.
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This is the largest response to a single natural disaster in the 125 years of the American Red Cross, and there's no doubt it will set many records in terms of the length and expanse of the operation.
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If you think about the scope and scale, I am not sure we imagined some of our responses need to be as large what ended up happening last fall.
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We are building an IT (information technology) infrastructure to be able to support 2 million families that have need of financial assistance and we will have that in place by July 1.
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The scope of this is just so huge. If you took New Orleans out of the equation, Mississippi and Alabama would be a bigger job than we tackled in all four of the storms that hit Florida last year.
areas quick
We had some areas that we couldn't get to as quick as we would want to.
build built demand handle launch providing system until wait
We could wait until we built a system that was big enough to handle the demand or we could launch what we had and build it as we went along. Did we frustrate people? Yes. ... But we were out there and we were providing all that we could do with what we had.
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At the end of the day, what really matters is people are serving me (the catastrophe victim) who understand me and who know me and who can help me. The rural congregation down the country lane should know that it can be part of the community's disaster response, and the Red Cross can help them become part of that response.
alone meet needs people
We have a long way to go in our fundraising to meet the needs of people from Katrina, let alone what we need to do for the people of Rita.
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Time is short between now and the next hurricane season. We are focused on how we can improve, and ask that every community review its plans. The time to get together is now.
fall last robust systems
Frankly, our systems to do this last fall were not big enough, were not robust enough.
change places robust system volunteers
We need to change who we are. We can have the most robust system possible, but what we need to have are the right volunteers in the right places doing the right work.
affected areas country eat meals million needed prepared shelter supplies throughout
We will put in place in warehouses throughout the affected areas and around the country supplies needed to shelter 500,000 people. We will pre-position meals prepared to eat for a million a day.