Reacting to future disasters should be main focus now

As New Orleans was submerged by a sea of filthy water, it revealed how unprepared we are to meet the challenges of a major disaster in the United States. Hurricane Katrina shed a light on the administration’s willingness to fill the ranks of the Federal Emergency Management Agency with inexperienced political operatives.

Our vulnerabilities were exposed, prompting national, state and local leaders to call for reviews of disaster plans.

U.S. Rep. Harold Ford Jr. has called on Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff to conduct a federal, state and local government exercise to help plan a response to the Memphis region’s most daunting fear — a major earthquake.

One of the things Katrina taught us is that overwhelmed local and state government agencies need immediate help from the federal government in a major disaster and that delays can take a horrifying toll.

Memphis and other cities close to the New Madrid Fault can’t afford to ask if a major temblor is on the horizon. They must simply try to be prepared for when it happens.

Certainly, the level of awareness has been raised. More people now know that the zone we live in experienced earthquakes in 1811 and 1812 that would produce widespread death and destruction today. Outside help will have to come from far away.

Can focus remain on what to do in case of an earthquake, a terrorist attack or some unforeseen catastrophe that damages the community’s infrastructure, destroys lives or poses an imminent threat?