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- ----- Original Message ----- 
From: Henry Rosenberg 
To: fred fep 
Sent: Saturday, September 03, 2005 6:32 PM
Subject: RR relevance in this one


              
           

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     Saturday, September 3, 2005
            Last modified Thursday, September 1, 2005 2:07 PM PDT 
           
                 
                 

            We must be better prepared



            The catastrophic hurricane on the Gulf Coast has shown that the country is not well prepared for the kind of big emergency that we have worried about since Sept. 11, 2001.

            The biggest thing we have to worry about is an attack that knocks out all the systems on which we rely - transportation, electricity, water and the commercial network that distributes food - over a huge area, affecting hundreds of thousands of people. 

            This is what happened in the wake of the hurricane. What the wind didn't smash was wrecked by the flooding. People no longer had cars, and if they had cars they couldn't buy gas. There was no food and no drinking water. Businesses were wiped out along with the jobs they had supplied. And when night fell, people were left to try to survive the flooding in the dark.

                 
            All of this is what likely would happen, except perhaps the flooding, if terrorist gangs ever managed to explode a nuclear weapon in the middle of a large population. This is the worst possible thing they could do, and it's what we have been warned about ever since 9/11.

            The lessons from Katrina include that measures must be taken to enable states and the federal government to evacuate large numbers of people over great distances quickly. That implies requisitioning fleets of buses or trains, or having such fleets available near metropolitan areas.

            Reports from the Gulf Coast had people wandering aimlessly, wondering what to do next after their houses and belongings had been destroyed. Right away, a nationwide network should have sprung into action to pick these people up and transport them across the country. All over the United States, Americans would have gladly opened their homes to help house people who had lost everything. But no such plans exist, and no such transportation was carried out.

            The United States won't likely face that kind of storm again soon. And anywhere else, the combination of destruction and flood is much less likely. But the possibility of a massive blow against population centers cannot be ruled out.

            If the Homeland Security Department is any good, it will learn from Katrina and then set about building a nationwide system. The system should allow Americans to help each other quickly - right away, not days or weeks later - when a catastrophe strikes. (hh)

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