Feds: US Still Not Ready For Disasters

(CBS/AP)  New Orleans is still woefully unprepared for catastrophes 10 months after Hurricane Katrina, and the two cities targeted by the Sept. 11 attacks do not meet guidelines for responding to major disasters, a federal security analysis concluded Friday.

Florida, accustomed to being whipped with hurricane winds, was the only state to meet all of the Department of Homeland Security's basic requirements for planning for catastrophes.

The report concluded that all 50 states as well as 75 major cities show continuing weaknesses — with the overwhelming majority still ill-equipped to handle a natural or man-made calamity, reports CBS News correspondent Bob Orr.

Eleven states were rated in a Homeland Security Department scorecard as having sufficient plans to respond to disasters: Alabama, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New York, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Vermont.

Response plans for Louisiana, still devastated from hurricanes Katrina and Rita, were deemed insufficient to manage huge emergencies.

City and state plans for emergencies like localized fires, floods and tornadoes "are good, they're robust," department undersecretary George Foresman said. But plans for catastrophes "are not going to support us as they should."

"The nation is not ready for a catastrophic event on the scope and scale of Katrina," he said.

The shortcomings in emergency planning, including antiquated and uncoordinated response guidelines, are cause "for significant national concern," the report added.

President Bush ordered the review of state and city emergency plans in a visit to New Orleans last Sept. 15, weeks after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the city. The report analyzes response and evacuation procedures for all states, the 75 largest cities and six U.S. territories.

The analysis is based on a complicated scorecard for each state and city, rating their plans for evacuations, medical care, sheltering victims, public alerts and several other emergency priorities.

Among cities, reports Orr, New Orleans, still in ruins, and Washington, hit in the 9/11 and anthrax attacks, both score poorly, and New York, home to ground zero, still isn't fully prepared to handle a wide-scale natural disaster or terrorist attack.

More than half of New Orleans' plans, 58 percent, were described as insufficient to respond to catastrophes, and only 4 percent met the minimum federal guidelines.

"That's baloney," Col. Jeff Smith, acting director of the governor's homeland security office, said. "We certainly are much better prepared than we were in previous years."

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