DC Area Unprepared for Disasters, Study Says

A new study says the Washington, DC, region’s network of non-profit groups is not prepared to help the area to respond to either a natural disaster or a terrorist attack.

According to an article by Philip Rucker in the Washington Post, the emergency preparedness plan by Deloitte and the Nonprofit Roundtable of Greater Washington, says the region’s network of non-profits only have the capacity to deal with just five percent of the likely need for food and shelter.

The plan is one of the first to create a strategy for non-profits, Rucker says, and is a broad blueprint to fill gaps in the disaster readiness of the area’s 4,000 human service groups. “It calls on relief organizations to expand their mass care capacities, develop methods to care for pets, better manage volunteers and strengthen mental health services,” Rucker says.

According to Rucker, the plan also calls on relief organizations to create a regional communications system, improve capacity for long-term recovery efforts and strengthen partnerships with other agencies, governments and businesses.

“The cup is more than half full. We are better prepared today than we were yesterday,” Chuck Bean, executive director of the Nonprofit Roundtable of Greater Washington, told Rucker. But, he said, “there’s more to do.”

The plan’s authors told Rucker it can be used as a model for other metropolitan areas. It was released a month after a federal government report found that relief organizations are unprepared to meet projected mass casualty needs during a natural catastrophe or terrorist attack in several major cities, including DC.

To read the full article, click here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/23/AR2008102302865_pf.html