The non-profit, non-partisan (they say)group 'Trust for Americas Health Foundation' has released their sixth annual report on the preparedness of states to protect against health and food outbreaks and natural disasters.


Ready or Not? 2008 Report

There is a link at the bottom that provides the accounting of each individual state and why they received the score they did.

Not a long read, but its illuminating.

According to the scores Louisiana (my home, heaven help me) scored 10 out of 10.

This doesn't seem right.

We're never at the top of any list that's good.

This means either:

A) Louisiana has pulled its act together and finally done something right, or

B) The folks doing the scoring don't know what their talking about, or

C) Somebody doing the reporting on Louisiana's capability lied through their teeth ("yeah, man we got that covered, no problem...")

Knowing my state government from watching it for 45 years, I'm putting my money on "C".

I'll believe it when I see it in action.

I downloaded and read part of the full report and scanned some of it. I have no way of identifying any 'bad' biases, and I've heard of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for decades, so I'll assume there are no partisan biases being hidden. And I'm still not impressed with the long list of failures they give. It's too general. I looked at the list of factors they used for their table of good and bad states on preparedness, and it's just not impressing me. Montana and Nebraska rate a 5, for different reasons, but that's what I'd expect of states that are sparsely populated and rural. I have no reason to expect the same disasters that would occur in Florida and Connecticut, which also rate a 5, and again for different reasons. It just doesn't correlate to lump disparate states with different 'failures' to meet TAHF and RWJF expectations.

I tend towards states' rights, and I expect Montanans and Nebraskans to take into account their geography, population, and special interests and to account for themselves as they see fit. I don't, for example, think Nebraskans need to have the same concerns over pandemics as the people in Connecticut, and I see no reason for Montana residents to have the same concerns as Floridians over natural disasters.

This report seems to me to expect each state to have the same level of preparedness for each concern of the authors, and I don't buy that.

Samhain,
Don't forget about "Option D":

D) The poll takers talked to the Lousy-anna Office of Emergency Management people; believed everything that The OEM people told them, and accepted that money under the table as the OEM people informed them of all of our good news!!!

I was talking to our county emergency coordinator this night about our (Nebraska) poor showing this year. The thing is that we went from 10/10 last year to 5/10 this year. He blamed it on some of the questions such the courier thing - we use the state patrol for that, so there's no need for a courier service. State medical reserve coordinator? No, they're all local. So while I'm not sure about still scoring 10/10 this year, we would have at least scored a few higher if the questions had been worded a little differently (he did state our liability laws are poor). YMMV

We'll, I should be able to sleep better tonight knowing that my state, Pennsylvania scored 9 out of 10, but I doubt I will. Just because they say their prepared doesn't mean that when something actually happens that they will be there to help. I'll depend on myself thank you very much.

Interesting note- Arizona got a low score and their Governor is going to be our new Homeland Security Chief?

Ha! I live here and failed to mention that. Great point.

I am amazed that CA scored at high as it did...

As the revenue shortfall shows, California spends too much, so probably have some bases covered that other (poorer) states don't. All of the fires and mudslides probably forced that issue.