Although this article appeared in Salon, the source is ProPublica, which has been on a crusade re the Red Cross. See : The Red Cross is its own Disaster.
Update on May 26. Congressman Benny Thomas presses Red Cross officials for explanation.
Recovery Diva
Long-Term Recovery from Disasters
Recovery Diva 
I agree that tearing up local roots did a lot of damage.
Reblogged this on Exploring Emergency Management & Homeland Security and commented:
Continued failures of a great organization, which I’ve written about in the past. Hopefully they see the writing on the wall.
Claire,
I’m not at all surprised by this. I wrote about these same failures a couple years back in my own blog. When an organization, which has long had local roots in nearly every community, pulls up those roots in favor of regional offices, they lose touch with the people and communities they intend to serve. The more distant they are, the slower they are to respond and the less coordination they often have. In the Northeast, some chapters are now at the state level, or in some cases one chapter covering two states.
The boots-on-the-ground Red Crossers – almost all volunteers – do an incredible job with what they can, but the organization severely lacks in leadership. A very disappointing state for an organization with such a great legacy.
-TR