Flunking Disaster

States, cities not ready for catastrophes, government says

Friday, June 16, 2006; Posted: 7:38 a.m. EDT (11:38 GMT)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Nearly five years after the 9/11 attacks and 10 months after Hurricane Katrina, most American cities and states remain unprepared for catastrophes, a government analysis concludes.

The shortcomings in emergency planning, including antiquated and uncoordinated response guidelines, are cause "for significant national concern," the Homeland Security Department found.

Although emergency plans appear to be stronger in 18 states along the nation's "Hurricane Belt," the analysis cited preparedness gaps in 131 state and city emergency response plans. Planning for evacuations also remains "an area of profound concern," the review found.

"We rely to a troubling extent on plans that are created in isolation, are insufficiently detailed and are not subject to adequate review," concluded the department's 160-page review of findings and annexes that was delivered to Congress on Thursday evening. A copy of the review was obtained by The Associated Press.

"Time and again, these factors extract a severe penalty in the midst of a crisis: precious time is consumed in the race to correct the misperceptions of federal, state and local responders about roles, responsibilities and actions," the review found. "The result is uneven performance and repeated and costly operational miscues."

President Bush ordered the review of state and city emergency plans in a speech in New Orleans on September 15, weeks after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the city. It analyzes response and evacuation procedures for all 50 states, the nation's 75 largest cities and six U.S. territories.

Documents made available to the AP did not cite individual cities or states, and a Homeland Security official suggested that portion of the report would be released later.

It criticized the states and cities in several key areas, including:

# Failing to address emergency needs for sick, elderly or poor people unable to help themselves.

# Being too slow to issue disaster warnings and other alerts to the public.

# Failing to designate a clear chain of command during major disasters.

The DHS National Plan (.pdf) was released today. My state's plan was one of the ones that flunked.

Let's not even think about what an evacuation for the DC metro area would look like.