Working the line

The Disaster Recovery Center I'm working out of is located in one of the (Big Northeastern city) suburbs in a very affluent county. My job is to talk to each of the applicants about how to repair the damage that they endured and also how to prepare and respond to future events that come their way. I speak for the federal program but cooperate with any state programs that address mitigation. In addition the DRC hosts a range of state programs that offer aid and assistance to those in need, and therein lies the root of a problem we had last week

The state welfare department announced that they would be handing out electronic food stamps to qualified individuals and that well intentioned support gesture resulted in a massive turnout of applicants from the city. It was just turning light when I checked into the center (about 3 hours before official opening) and found a line of about 50 people, and by the time the doors opened we had about 650 people in line and since it took the state a minimum of 15 minutes to process each applicant the math indicated we would be working until very late that night to process just the food stamp people. That meant that the applicants were going to be waiting...and waiting...and waiting before they could be processed. A perfect setting for high frustration levels and a potential riot situation.

The Center manager and a couple of the program managers took it upon ourselves to try to cool emotions and keep the peace. We walked and talked, offered sympathy and told everybody the truth about why we had the stack up and what we could and could not do to make their wait in line go faster/easier. Strangly enough the sight of "officials" walking the line and listening to their complaints not only calmed emotions, it even brought smiles and friendly comments. At least one other station lost control of their crowd which makes us believe that we must have done something right.

The old management rule of "managing by waking around" was proven that day.