. Red Cross executive director Heidi Ruster says Florida’s chapters have been on the leading edge of help because of years of devastating hurricanes. The National Red Cross has admitted it made mistakes during Katrina last August...especially in providing assistance in ethnic and minority communities. Ruster says one-quarter of the local chapter’s 200 volunteers are bilingual.

“So, yes, we have many more volunteers than we used to have and people to be able to outreach to the appropriate communities and we can always increase that. But we’re a lot farther than where we were a couple years ago.”