An unlikely group of men has been lining up lately at a Red Cross center in lower Manhattan to make appointments to seek September 11 disaster relief. They're drivers of the luxury sedans that ferry heavy hitters around town. After waiting about three hours for an appointment, each limo driver meets with a case worker. An hour later, he walks out with a check for $5,000 to $10,000 to cover his family's expenses for the next three months. The drivers are still making $700 to $1,000 a week. But to get these tax-free checks they have only to prove that their company had accounts near the World Trade Center and that they lost income as a result of the September 11 attacks. How much they've lost is not an issue. "Our guidelines," says Cheryl Clark, a volunteer from Reno, Nev., "are that we don't inquire into someone's financial background ... We don't want to make it too hard."
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