The Long ViewBe prepared

The 9/11 attacks and Katrina are the two book-ends marking the growing awareness of states that they had better be prepared for anything — and begin their preparations now before it is too late. Talk of evacuation drills, backup communications, and stresses on U.S. health care networks dominated discussion at the fall meeting of the National Conference of State Legislatures held last week in Chicago. Emergency preparedness and homeland security merged into one big worry, topping the usual priorities including Medicaid, education, and budgets. The threat of terrorism has been a driving force since 9/11. “Katrina is the other side of the coin,” said New York state senator Mike Balboni, a Republican who has focused on homeland security issues. The devastating Gulf Coast hurricane made clear that years of security work at all levels of government has not been enough. “It failed,” he said. “In any substantial emergency you better not expect the federal government to do anything soon. You better have your own resources,” said Oregon state representative Phil Barnhardt, a Democrat. “Yes, we’re paying a lot more attention now.”

The problem is that leaders, and to an even greater degree the public, have not consistently devoted time or resources to get ready for a hypothetical worst-case scenario. “We’re swimming against the tide right now, the cultural tide,” Balboni said. Some of the participants said that Katrina and the other hurricanes this year may spark new preparation by spreading the worries of security and emergency response, said Ron Snell, an NCSL official. “The central thread is preparing for disaster, whatever comes,” he said. “In states like this one, or deeper in the Midwest, terrorism is something that happens on the East or West coast. But storms, fires, earthquakes aren’t.”

-read more in Robert Tanner’s AP report