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U.S. Still Unprepared for Major Disasters

A study conducted in the wake of the sluggish federal response to Hurricane Katrina last year has found that the Department of Homeland Security is still woefully unprepared to deal with major events or disasters. According to George Foresman, undersecretary of Homeland Security, ?We just have not, in this country, put the premium on our level of catastrophe planning that is necessary to be ready for those wide-scale events.? Said Jeff Walsh of Maryland?s Emergency Management Agency, ?You really have to look at each state individually and how they`ve prepared for the emergencies that their experts anticipate.?

Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New York, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Vermont are among the U.S. states which were found to be sufficiently prepared for any sort of disaster, be it man-made or natural. The study was conducted across all fifty states, seventy-five cities, and six territories. Eighteen traditionally hurricane-threatened states were found to be better prepared than the rest of the tested areas in the U.S., with the exception of Louisiana.

The city of New Orleans, with only four percent of total preparedness measures meeting federal standards, was among the lowest marks found. New York City and the District of Columbia received only partially sufficient marks for their preparations, New York and Washington, D.C. were the main targets of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Cuts by the federal government this year of funds for first responders were blamed by the officials in those two cities as a primary reason why their marks were low.