Disasters, by their nature, present challenges, but we accomplished our mission in Mississippi and served
thousands of people who needed our help. We provided nearly 15,000 meals and snacks, over 17,000
relief items and opened more than 3,000 cases for individuals and families that were in need of recovery
services. Thanks to the hard work and dedication of our workforce, primarily volunteers, we met the need
and we are proud of our performance.
We are a charity, not a government agency, and we have our own policies and procedures. But we are
committed to working closely with local, state and federal officials to get the job done.
With respect to the specific events in Greenville and Washington County, the issue is not so much about
what happened as it is the language used by various persons, each with a different perspective, to
describe those events. In a disaster environment, Red Cross and Emergency Management officials act
with best of intentions on the information they have in order to provide services most effectively. Red
Cross and Emergency Management officials do confer and coordinate every day, more often on the
strategy and major objectives, sometimes less on the exactness of every tactical detail. No person in a
Red Cross Disaster Relief Operation Center – or a State/County Emergency Operations Center - can
anticipate exactly where a Red Cross worker is going to find families unexpectedly and render aid. We
may not always follow a pre-determined plan: Red Cross workers meet the need where we find it,
It also occurs during relief operations that responders talk and express ideas internally with some amount
of hyperbole. Their intent is to draw focus on, and seek resolution for, a specific issue or occurrence.
Usually, as is the case in Greenville and Washington County, their issues relate to the safety of the
workers and service to people in need. To characterize their intent or to generalize their respect for
workers and people affected by disasters any differently would flatly be wrong and impose an egregious
disservice to those persons.
We are proud of our people, in particular people like David Kitchen, and their service to others in times of
need. We empower them to make decisions at the most local of levels and frequently they must make
difficult decisions in the heat of the moment with whatever information is available. We expect our
workforce to make the appropriate decisions balancing the needs of the community, their personal safety,
the local environment, and local relationships.
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