Disaster-prone cities worry about next big one

Looking beyond Mother Nature
It is not just natural disasters for which Katrina has heightened preparations.

Officials in cities like Las Vegas look at the hurricane as a lesson for terrorism. Because of the city’s economic and cultural importance, and because known terrorists have visited the city before, Las Vegas is considered a likely target of a terrorist attack.

Before Katrina, however, Clark County Sheriff Bill Young did not consider what would happen if his police force, the state’s largest, was temporarily paralyzed as police were in New Orleans. Katrina also got him thinking about how few highways lead out of Las Vegas, that a sudden evacuation of automobiles would render the roads impassible. And he wondered how a massive earthquake in Los Angeles might affect his city, a likely destination for millions of hypothetical evacuees, now less hypothetical in his mind.

“I really hadn’t thought about it until now,” said Young. “They’d totally overrun this state. I think we’re going to have to factor in a few more things.”

Katrina illuminated more logistical holes in Nevada’s emergency plans. The war in Iraq has taken most of the state’s National Guard troops out of the country. Even still, Las Vegas is probably more prepared than many cities for a large-scale disaster.

‘Test ... beyond the breaking point’
Earlier this year, 78 local, state and federal agencies took part in a simulated chemical attack, called “Rotunda Thunda,” at the Las Vegas Convention Center and the Strip. It was the second such exercise in two years. The first, called “Determined Promise,” was conducted in 2003.

“We threw the kitchen sink at southern Nevada,” said Clark County Emergency Manager Jim O’Brien. “The rationale was to test us beyond the breaking point. That was our Katrina.”

At the other side of the country, Linden, N.J., is part of an industrial corridor of chemical plants and oil refineries that some federal officials refer to as “the most dangerous two miles in America.”

The plants come within 30 yards of public roads and are generally protected by nothing more than chain-link fence. Tucked in between these plants are people’s homes. According to a study earlier this year by the Congressional Research Service, there are seven chemical plants in New Jersey where a terrorist attack or accident could kill more than 1 million people.

Since the hurricane hit, acting New Jersey Gov. Richard Codey has met with state police and other agencies to review their terrorism plans.

Helen Pointek, 88, lives across the street from a refinery. Katrina, she said, has made her wonder what would happen if a plant was breached by accident or by an act of terrorism.

“I don’t know what I would do,” she said. “At my age, I probably would just drop dead. I do worry about those tanks.”

Short attention spans
But memories are short. A disaster like Katrina doesn’t necessarily make people fearful in the long term, even if it should.

“The capacity people have to adjust and make peace with a new situation, even if they feel vulnerable, is really remarkable,” said Randy Quevillon, chair of the psychology department and the Disaster Mental Health Institute at the University of South Dakota.

And for many in this country, comfort comes in the knowledge that it’s a big place and you can always go somewhere else.

In Memphis, 50-year-old Stewart Wilson said there was nothing he could do to prevent a disaster in his home town. He figures he’d adapt.

“If it gets so bad in Memphis,” he shrugged, “I’ve got relatives in Jackson, Tenn., and Chattanooga.”

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