Study: U.S. Not Ready For Disasters
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's basic requirements for planning for catastrophes.
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.
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.
The department's undersecretary, George Foresman, said, "The nation is not ready for a catastrophic event on the scope and scale of Katrina," reports Orr.
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.
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.
New York and Washington, al Qaeda's targets on Sept. 11, 2001., received lukewarm ratings on the scorecard. Seventy-one percent of New York's emergency plans were described as "partially sufficient" in responding to catastrophes. In Washington, by comparison, 69 percent of the capital area's plans fell below the full minimum standards, and 2 percent were deemed insufficient.
Despite sending $18 billion in Homeland Security grants to spur local preparedness since Sept. 11, efforts, "very little of it has gone to planning, training and exercise," said Foresman.
The report found that the 18 hurricane-prone states, from Maine to Texas, appeared to be better prepared for disasters than the rest of the country.
Foresman said "I think those big cities and states that have experienced a major evacuation over the course of the past 15 years are better prepared to deal with it than those that have not," reports Orr.
Those states hugging the Atlantic and Gulf coasts were judged by peers to have emergency plans "that were more likely to be rated sufficient ... than other states," the review noted. Plans by Hurricane Belt states to manage resources, health and medical issues and communications were "noticeably stronger" in comparison, it found.
Similarly, cities in these states also were rated more likely to be prepared to issue warnings, manage resources, distribute emergency public information and provide mass care.
But there was a major exception: The cities were judged as comparatively not sufficient in planning for evacuations.
The review is the latest in a series of government and expert analyses since Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast on Aug. 29. Nearly all have found lacking preparedness levels for large-scale disasters. The Sept. 11 commission and other panels also have found shortcomings in preparedness for another terrorist attack.