Preparing for threats takes practice for governments, too

摘要

As it turns out, there has been more disaster preparation underway by the government than we knew. As far back as late 2004, government officials from state and federal agencies have been working together to anticipate terror attacks on the food supply and practice their reactions. The effort appears to have been a valuable preparation tool. Of the many tragedies wrought by last year's Hurricane Katrina, several were of a political nature. We discovered, disastrously, that our state, local and especially federal officials were not sufficiently prepared to respond to this disaster, nor were they able to respond quickly or effectively enough once it arrived. This led many to believe that they also might not be prepared to address terror attacks.