Rethinking disaster plans, San Jose CA Mercury News

[Coastie for Truth]

Rethinking disaster plans, San Jose CA Mercury News, Monday, September 12 2005]

The federal government's failure to help thousands of survivors for days after Hurricane Katrina has many Californians wondering if we would face the same fate in our own worst-case disaster -- a catastrophic earthquake.

How long would neighborhoods and cities be left to fend for themselves, without food, water, shelter or security? Would the very basics of survival be beyond people's reach?

Those questions have Bay Area residents stocking up on disaster supplies and officials considering whether they'll have to go it alone for longer than the 72 hours that current disaster scenarios assume.

``The response in Louisiana was representative of a Third World country,'' said Dallas Jones, a leader of California Professional Firefighters and former director of the state's Office of Emergency Services. ``What can we expect, and in what time frames, from the federal government? We need to look into this so that we know if we need to be self-sufficient for two days, three weeks or three months.''

California starts from a position of strength. It has spent billions strengthening its freeway overpasses and reinforcing buildings. Its mutual aid system, tested time and again by fires, quakes and floods, is a national model.

...severely edited due to space limitations...

The article makes the point -- " Its mutual aid system, tested time and again by fires, quakes and floods, is a national model." But it is much deeper - it is citizen involvement through and through - top to bottom---

It is "for real"
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And I live in the red "VIII-Very Strong" region of the map-->
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And with Barbara Boxer as my Senator, Zoe Lofgren as my Congressperson, Nancy Pelosi 40 miles up US 101, and Barbara Lee and Ron Dellums 45 miles up I-880, in the region where Gubernator Boobengrubber lost big --- we don't expect anything from Bush - Cheney - Rove - Michael Brown.