A Houston city councilman denounced the Red Cross and blatantly told people to not donate to the organization again, according to a report from the Houston Chronicle.
"I beg you not to send them a penny," Councilman Dave Martin reportedly said at Wednesday's council meeting. "They are the most inept unorganized organization I've ever experienced."
According to the Chronicle, Harris County Judge Ed Emmett also said he asked a local nonprofit to set up a shelter at NRG Park because "he did not trust the Red Cross to do so."
A Red Cross spokeswoman defended the nonprofit in a statement to the Chronicle:
"We had all of our shelters on standby the night before Hurricane Harvey blew in, we had all our supplies ready and waiting to go," spokeswoman MaryJane Mudd said. "In some cases the floodwaters made it a little hard to get those supplies from where they were stationed into the shelters for a short while. We've had 1,500 people on the ground, we've served over 700,000 meals and snacks, we've sheltered 40,000 people. I know the plan was there. The process has worked very well."
