Red Cross Disaster Services - Part 1

A terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. - from the children's book,
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Last night my wife and I were called by the Red Cross to provide aid for a small apartment complex that had experienced an apartment fire. No one was home when the fire started and the cause remains unknown. In today's blog I'd like to share some of what happened.

Disaster recovery takes time. The fire is thought to have occurred at 3:30 pm. At 4:30 the fire department initially told the Red Cross that no help was needed (no one was home). This changed at 5:30 when residents started returning from work and the Red Cross was officially asked to assist. The shift coordinator was stuck in commuter traffic and was not able to build a response team until 7pm. My wife and I arrived on site at 7:30 and waited until about 8:00 for a translator to arrive and organize the several families that needed help. With the help of the translator my wife & I completed case files for five family units, filled out financial assistance forms, obtained authorization for and provided debit cards. This took 2 1/2 hours until 10:30pm. During all this we sat under a street light on a sidewalk trying to keep the paper work organized.

A part of the process that surprises many people is the request for an ID. Before handing out debit cards, the Red Cross representatives need to verify that you are actually a resident of the impacted building. This is to prevent fraud. A foreign passport is nice and proves that you are you but won't provide proof of residency in apartment X. Last night we were fortunate to have the landlady on hand to verify actual renters.

Tomorrow I'll give more details on the assistance provided.

Bottom Line
Disaster recovery requires time and patience and lots of paper work. Be prepared for lots of personal questions and lots of waiting.