Tracking survivors' movement challenges agencies, charities

Victims must keep temporary addresses up to date to receive mail, checks.
SCRIPPS HOWARD
Along with sheltering and supporting survivors of Hurricane Katrina, the government and charities are struggling with the prospect of tracking the biggest and most sudden migration of Americans since the Great Depression.
Out of more than 9 million Gulf Coast residents who suffered Katrina's visit to their neighborhoods, more than 2 million evacuated, and officials expect that as many as 1 million will be displaced from their homes for months or years.
Keeping tabs on Katrina evacuees is important not only to the individuals and families who have dispersed to virtually every state and the District of Columbia, but also to the governments and private groups trying to help them effectively.
Uncertainties
It's unclear how long the numerous Web sites set up by organizations to help Katrina survivors find family members and friends will remain in place or if they'll be useful in helping larger groups stay in touch over time.
And it's also uncertain whether the roughly 200,000 people FEMA -- the Federal Emergency Management Agency -- plans to place in mobile homes and campers will be grouped in any relationship to former neighbors, or how many people may abandon or join the trailer villages over time.
Officially, there were more than a quarter-million people in shelters in the first two weeks after the storm, although many shelter operations in churches and other settings opened and closed without official notice.
FEMA tried to get everyone in a shelter registered in its computer system, but many people left before signing up.
Systems in place
The Red Cross says it is paying for 140,000 people to stay in hotel rooms in 46 states and is extending the usual 14-day limit for such stays to 28 days for Katrina victims.
Relief experts say hundreds of thousands of other evacuees have been absorbed into extended families, friends and even the homes of strangers, or found rental housing in cities across the country, although the bulk are in Louisiana and Texas.
FEMA has registered nearly a half-million Katrina victims for financial assistance in the past two weeks, while the Red Cross has signed up 250,000 families for aid, both despite frequent computer registration problems at shelters and relief centers, and long delays getting through to phone registration lines.