By Billy Gunn
bgunn@thetowntalk.com
(318) 487-6378

It's been a week since Hurricane Katrina evacuees started
arriving, dazed and heartbroken, fearing for loved ones and what the future
holds.

Many escaped with little clothing, their kids and pets in tow, not much money in
their pockets, jobs vanquished.

They grew roots quickly wherever in Cenla they landed: small churches and
campgrounds, at least one hotel that let them live in lobbies and fed them.

It was the closest thing to home they've had, and Central Louisiana welcomed
them with bountiful generosity.

However, some of the refugees and those who have helped them are frustrated with
the Red Cross and its intractable bureaucracy, its tendency to look to the rule
book before taking a step, whether it be registering evacuees for shelters and
getting help from sorely needed volunteers.

Also, the Red Cross-mandated migrating of evacuees from small shelters to large
is ripping some from the small venues where they feel safe to much larger ones
where people are placed hundreds to a room with no privacy and a shortage of
bathrooms.

Leann Murphy, CEO of the American Red Cross of Central Louisiana, said her
agency is in "crisis mode," they're doing the best they can and that she
understands the frustrations of evacuees and volunteers alike.

Just walk in the Red Cross' command central on Jackson Street, and one
encounters a house almost mad: volunteers dodging each other, cellular phones'
different tones sing, a closed door for a much-needed private moment.

But the enormity of the crisis, the influx of refugees (on Saturday the number
at approved Red Cross shelters in Central Louisiana was 6,000, with thousands
more staying elsewhere), doesn't seem to bring a change in Red Cross
procedures.

'Ridiculous'
"The Red Cross, they are ridiculous," said Tim Murry, a manager at Alexandria's
Holiday Inn Convention Center, where 100 to 200 evacuees have lived since
Katrina's landfall.

The hotel, like many other places with no Red Cross assistance, has sheltered
and fed the southeastern Louisiana residents, or former residents, since they
arrived: some yesterday, some a week ago.

Murry said he and Raj Patel, whose family owns the inn, on Friday tried to get
the temporary tenants registered with the Red Cross but were met with
resistance because of the emergency agency's steadfast adherence to its rules.

Before registering, the hotel would have to demand that evacuees leave, then
they'd have to find a registration center and fill out a form supplied by a
certified Red Cross volunteer, Murry said.

As a compromise, Murry and Patel offered to bring registration forms to the
hotel and have evacuees fill them out there to keep their tenants, many of whom
have not a buck for gasoline, off the road.

And, they said, the Alexandria Riverfront Center is connected to the Holiday
Inn, just steps away.

The Riverfront is one of four big Red Cross shelters in Rapides Parish that
continues to take on evacuees; two busloads of New Orleans evacuees arrived
Friday night.

But those staying at the Holiday Inn, where in banquet rooms they've made
makeshift beds out of chairs, couldn't walk up stairs and register, Murry said.

"I just said screw it. I'm keeping them," Patel said. "The important thing is
that they register with FEMA."

FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is a critical link to those
displaced and needing federal assistance.

Evacuees at the Holiday Inn said Red Cross volunteers did come and tell them
about the procedures and what the agency required.

It wasn't a good exchange, said those who've constructed boundaries where
families can keep a semblance of privacy in the inn's banquet room.

The Red Cross volunteer "came barging in here and said that we're destructing
the hotel," said Christina Rosa of Metairie, who didn't remember the
volunteer's name. "They said the hotel does not want you."

"We had problems with the Red Cross being kinda rude to us," said Sharon Sam of
New Orleans.

Both women said the generosity of Central Louisiana and especially Patel and the
Holiday Inn staff was a godsend: all were fed, local pastors came by to see
check on them, local Salvation Army volunteers supplemented their needs, they
felt safe.

But, Marco Sosa said, "This changed a lot of people's mind about the Red Cross."

Riverfront Center
In the Riverfront Center, hundreds lay on cots and milled around in the
over-cooled complex Saturday, and Marion Smith missed the smaller confines of
Northwood Elementary, where she and other St. Bernard Parish evacuees had
stayed.

"I loved it there," she said. "It's so crowded here."

Then Cynthia Jate, who drove the St. Bernard bus passengers to safety, told
Smith, "I got hold of your son. Pack your bags, he's coming (from Houston) to
get you."

Stunned and teary, Smith said nothing, just listened.

"He said he's been to Marksville to Mississippi, Lafayette, lookin' for you,"
Jate said. "He's so tickled."

Jate told other St. Bernard residents "anything's better than here. You don't
know these people.

"All the St. Bernard people, I'm trying to get them out," said Jate, clearly in
charge.

A volunteer
Leatha Basco also is mad at the Red Cross.

Though disabled, she thought she could do something, anything, for refugees
pouring in from the southeastern part of the state.

So, she left Forest Hill Friday morning and drove to the Rapides Parish
Coliseum's Exhibition Hall, one of the big-venue Red Cross shelters, the one
landmark she knew how to get to.

She put in a couple of hours, cleaning the restrooms and helping by lending her
cellular phones to refugees desperate to find loved ones and wanting news on
their homes.

Basco then attended training, where "they said that if you can't put in eight,
12, 24 hours (at a time), they don't want you. I just got up and walked out."

"There's a lot of people out there that give a little time," she said. "I guess
I'm good enough to clean the toilet but not good enough for anything else."

Murphy, the Red Cross CEO, said her manpower resources are stretched thin, and
that might deviate from agency rules and let volunteers work shorter hours.

The minimum-hours rule, she said, is in place for more orderly scheduling.

Town Talk reporter Mandy Goodnight contributed to this article.