Joe Becker
Joe Becker
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.
community efforts help hold lives lost needs neighbors proud red
We are proud of the extraordinary efforts of the more than 225,000 Red Crossers who put their day-to-day lives on hold to selflessly help their neighbors in need. Some of them lost everything in these storms, yet they put the needs of their community before their own.
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.
ask community focused hurricane next review short time together
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.
largest million night sheltered
We sheltered about 3.5 million people. The largest night was about 150,000.
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 assistance business concluded hands knew putting ran reasonable risk risks
We knew we ran the risk of putting assistance in the hands of potentially unscrupulous individuals not affected by the hurricanes. We concluded that it was a reasonable business risk and mitigated the risks as possible.
blow gulf inflict katrina monumental obvious storm
It was obvious even before Katrina made landfall in Mississippi that this storm was going to inflict a monumental blow to the Gulf Coast.
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.
assistance building families financial information july million support
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.
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.
country cross disaster help lane matters people red rural serving understand
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.
fall last robust systems
Frankly, our systems to do this last fall were not big enough, were not robust enough.