Access to cash post-Hurricane Katrina
By Kamil Skawinski • Bankrate.com

Cash is king in hurricane areas, and cash is hard to come by.

Customers of banks and credit unions with headquarters or data located in hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast have discovered their debit or credit cards could not always be verified or approved for transactions. Users of online banking services, too, have been alarmed to find that Web sites of local financial institutions have either been inaccessible or void of banking data.

The result has been problems paying for scarce necessities and worry that banking information has been blown away with their possessions.

Some rare good news
Don't panic. Your banking information isn't lost. "What most likely is causing problems for people in the affected area is not a loss of financial or banking data, but the loss of the telephone and communications infrastructure," explains David Barr, spokesman for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the federal agency that regulates banks. "Once telephone service becomes restored to more and more areas, and once the affected banks manage to get their own verification systems back online, the situation should improve."

In fact, some financial institutions, such as Hibernia Bank for example, had managed to restore services and data centers less than 48 hours after Katrina made landfall.

Other banks, such as AmSouth, according to Barr, have followed in the footsteps of Amadeo Peter Gianini, the famous founder of the Bank of Italy (today's Bank of America): They have been handling banking transactions on the pavement in front of a damaged branch office in Mississippi much like Gianini did in the aftermath of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

Other banks have actively deployed mobile ATMs into affected areas or extended branch hours.

Unfortunately, banks located in the most heavily storm-damaged areas might not be able to open or restore online services for some time. That applies especially to small banks and thrifts without a regional or national network. "If this applies to you," says Barr, "you really should contact one of the emergency service organizations, such as FEMA or the Red Cross, and request assistance."