The American Red Cross continues to get some bad press from their disaster response support activities. I know from talking to a number of Red Cross staffers that they are a bit peeved over how ProPublica has characterized the Red Cross' disaster response activities. I was a bit taken aback by a few of the comments from one local emergency manager in the article linked below. What I hear is a frustration with how the Red Cross has changed over time. Note that the correspondence he got back was to talk to a Regional Red Cross Director, and not his local chapter -- which is one of the issues I see happening across the United States. The local chapters in many places are gone and the response has been regionalized. This leaves no one locally for the city or county emergency manager to plan, train, exercise and coordinate with.
The Red Cross is quickly becoming "they," which is an adversarial position, versus a "we" in being part of the team.
Congress Asks Red Cross About W.Va. Responses to Several Natural Disasters
I'm wondering from the readers of this blog if you have seen a change in recent years? Leave a comment or send me an email directly.
Eric Holdeman is a contributing writer for Emergency Management magazine and is the former director of the King County, Wash., Office of Emergency Management.
