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Emergency readiness -- I am curious, muddy
Sep. 3rd, 2005 12:33 pmItem for discussion, which I hope will remain non-political and looking forward.
Should the United States maintain a disaster-response "capability" of people, supplies, and equipment large enough to cope with the destruction of a major city and its surroundings? Should this "capability" be ready to move within 48 hours of alert? That latter condition precludes using the materials and equipment (and many of the personnel) in the normal course of government business....
Keep in mind that this country does not have such capability now and has not had such for decades, under both Republican and Democratic administrations. The closest we've come to it is the Civil Defense preparations of the 1950s and 1960s, oriented toward nuclear war rather than natural disaster, and _that_ was dismantled in the 1970s and 1980s. One example of this dismantling is the CD command bunker about ten miles from where I sit, gutted in the 1980s and abandoned, the doors welded shut....
Should the United States maintain a disaster-response "capability" of people, supplies, and equipment large enough to cope with the destruction of a major city and its surroundings? Should this "capability" be ready to move within 48 hours of alert? That latter condition precludes using the materials and equipment (and many of the personnel) in the normal course of government business....
Keep in mind that this country does not have such capability now and has not had such for decades, under both Republican and Democratic administrations. The closest we've come to it is the Civil Defense preparations of the 1950s and 1960s, oriented toward nuclear war rather than natural disaster, and _that_ was dismantled in the 1970s and 1980s. One example of this dismantling is the CD command bunker about ten miles from where I sit, gutted in the 1980s and abandoned, the doors welded shut....
