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This Nation Is So Ready...

How ready are we?

According to 183 mayors, not that ready.

During a media forum held at the National Press Club in Washington (DC) July 26, The United States Conference of Mayors released a major new emergency preparedness/homeland security survey, which found that more action is needed on key issues such as interoperable communications, evacuation planning, and pandemic flu preparedness.
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The survey revealed a number of key findings:

• 80 percent of cities felt they had not received sufficient funding from the federal government to allow their first responders to talk with one another.
• While 73 percent of the cities with populations over 300,000 had recently created or updated an evacuation plan, only 56 percent of cities on average had done so.
• 72 percent of all cities had not been assigned a Principal Federal Official to work with them in the event of a disaster. However, when the largest cities were surveyed, 60 percent responded yes.
• Though 69 percent of cities had been contacted by federal or state governments to discuss possible pandemic flu outbreaks, only 30 percent of cities felt they were prepared to handle such an outbreak on their own for the first few days (and possibly weeks), before federal assistance would be made available.

Video, courtesy of MayorVision (yes, "MayorVision").
Full text of the report (.pdf).

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This Nation Is So Ready...

How ready are we?

According to 183 mayors, not that ready.

During a media forum held at the National Press Club in Washington (DC) July 26, The United States Conference of Mayors released a major new emergency preparedness/homeland security survey, which found that more action is needed on key issues such as interoperable communications, evacuation planning, and pandemic flu preparedness.
...
The survey revealed a number of key findings:

• 80 percent of cities felt they had not received sufficient funding from the federal government to allow their first responders to talk with one another.
• While 73 percent of the cities with populations over 300,000 had recently created or updated an evacuation plan, only 56 percent of cities on average had done so.
• 72 percent of all cities had not been assigned a Principal Federal Official to work with them in the event of a disaster. However, when the largest cities were surveyed, 60 percent responded yes.
• Though 69 percent of cities had been contacted by federal or state governments to discuss possible pandemic flu outbreaks, only 30 percent of cities felt they were prepared to handle such an outbreak on their own for the first few days (and possibly weeks), before federal assistance would be made available.

Video, courtesy of MayorVision (yes, "MayorVision").
Full text of the report (.pdf).