72 Hours of Preparedness

Finally a good editorial from the Sacramento Bee. The article points out the necessity of all to prepare for a disaster. New Orleans has demonstrated that in the midst of a disaster it may be several days before we receive aid. Are you prepared?

Daniel Weintraub: First responders in a major disaster: You and I
By Daniel Weintraub -- Bee Columnist
Published 2:15 am PDT Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Story appeared in Editorials section, Page B7


Now that the dust, or the muck, has begun to settle in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, this is a good time to consider how Californians might respond to a disaster of similar proportions. The first and most enduring lesson from Katrina may be this: Be prepared to take care of yourself, and your neighbor if possible, for at least three days after any major disaster. Don't expect to get help from anyone, including government. If help comes, great. But don't assume that it will.


The same lesson should apply to disaster preparedness on a broader scale. If California government officials know that the state's infrastructure is vulnerable and needs to be fixed, they can't use the lack of sufficient assistance from the federal government as an excuse to delay. They must act now to prioritize the state's needs and attack them rather than waiting for help and pointing fingers later.

Katrina exposed vast weaknesses on both fronts along the Gulf Coast and especially in New Orleans. City and state officials did not do enough to protect their fellow citizens from disaster or prepare to respond if one hit. Evacuation plans were not followed, buses were left unused in parking lots that later flooded, police could not or would not show up for duty, the American Red Cross, designated by the law as the first responder for evacuees, was blocked from entering the city with food and water, and the governor refused to sign a request turning over control of the National Guard to President Bush.

Given the scope of local and state incompetence, if not corruption, the president should have acted sooner to try to take over the response, even if it meant going public with delicate, behind-the-scenes negotiations and declaring the obvious: Louisiana officials were overmatched and needed to be shoved aside, even if they resisted.

We can only hope that California would do better in a similar predicament. But there is no way to know how any person or agency would react under the kind of pressures experienced in New Orleans and the entire Gulf Coast region in recent weeks.

California has had its share of disasters, but nothing in its modern history can compare to the flooding of an entire metropolitan area on top of the typical wind and water damage that comes from a devastating hurricane.

The closest scenario imaginable might be the "Big One," a catastrophic earthquake that levels much of Los Angeles or San Francisco. A Bay Area quake of that magnitude is especially horrifying to consider because of its potential to bust the levees in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and unleash flooding that would not only take lives but could cripple California's water supply system for months or even years.

Such a quake would probably collapse thousands of buildings, unleash fires that could not be controlled, sever communications and power lines, and overwhelm first responders for days.

California's official state emergency plan is built on the assumption that disaster response is best coordinated at the lowest level of government involved in an emergency. Local authorities, the plan says, will maintain "control and responsibility" within their jurisdictions unless superseded by statute or agreement.

The plan calls for local government to request assistance from the state if needed, but also allows the governor to declare a state of emergency if he determines that the local authority is "inadequate" to cope with the disaster.

While the president, too, can declare an emergency, as Bush did in this case, he lacks the authority to take over for local law enforcement except in the limited case of an "insurrection." It might be a good idea to change that and allow a president to step in and federalize disaster response - including the use of the military to enforce the law -- if he determines that local and state officials are overwhelmed.

As New Orleans demonstrated, the most important function the government can perform is to restore and maintain security. That is the first role of government in good times but especially in bad. Once security is compromised and order crumbles, the worst elements of society are going to plunge into the vacuum and take advantage of it. And if people fear for their lives from their fellow man, in addition to the elements, everything else that needs doing is going to be impaired.

Disaster preparedness and response need not be inconsistent with limited government. If providing for public safety is the first job of any government, then even the smallest agency should be doing everything it can to prepare to maintain the peace, before it does anything else.

Yet no matter how well government prepares or responds, there is still the chance a disaster will strike that simply cannot be managed from above. Each of us has a responsibility to be ready to take care of ourselves and our loved ones. Even San Francisco, a city that prides itself on its sense of community and its extensive public services, has established a Web site titled www.72hours.org to drive home the point that its citizens must plan to fend for themselves in a disaster.

Go there now, and be ready.