Point number one: it's probably impossible for a trauma surgeon, someone with almost superhuman powers to think towards the future, delay gratification, and tolerate unbearable pressure, to comprehend the mind set of people who, after being handed money after a natural disaster, will use it to get their nails done. These people can't foresee the future, can't delay gratification, and can't tolerate pressure.
In between these extremes are most of the rest of us, the ones who got out with nothing but the shirt on their backs, if that, no wallet, no checkbook, no driver's license, no credit cards, no Social Security card, no ID whatsoever.
The debit cards were to give them money to tide them over, and most of them used it well, because most of them you've never heard from again.
Here's one example: a lawyer I know was taking care of his mother, who did not want to leave due to ill health. Their house flooded during the storm, not afterwards. The lawyer was able to get his mother out of the house and put her on the roof. She was in her nightgown. He was in his T-shirt and underwear. No shoes. After days of waiting for rescue he commandeered a neighbor's boat, put his mother in the boat and pushed her to high ground, barefoot, through filthy water, over rocks. She needed emergency medical care. He needed attention to his wounds, and was dehydrated. Eventually she was evacuated to Atlanta and he to Lafayette.
They had money in the bank but the banks were closed, no power. And they had no wallets, no driver's licenses, no credit cards, no Social Security cards, no cash. They couldn't call friends for help because their friends were scattered all over the country or else stuck in NO with no power.
Was it wrong to give them debit cards?
Was there waste? No doubt. Was there fraud? No doubt. But overall, I think the program was brilliantly conceived. |
