AP Wire | 09/02/2005 | Mo. safe­ty chief wants dis­as­ter plan review:

The head of the Mis­souri Depart­ment of Pub­lic Safe­ty said Fri­day that the state is well-pre­pared for nat­ur­al dis­as­ters … that could bring dev­as­ta­tion sim­i­lar to that being seen along the Gulf Coast.

Still, direc­tor Mark James said he plans to have exten­sive dis­cus­sions with emer­gency man­age­ment offi­cials now head­ed for the area when they return to see if the state should reassess how it would respond to mas­sive tor­na­does, flood­ing or even an earth­quake on the New Madrid fault in south­east Missouri.

“I want to get a brief­ing on where we are with (plan­ning) just to ensure that our cur­rent plans that are sit­ting on the shelf — are they ade­quate?” James said in an inter­view. “I’m sure (New Orleans) thought they had all kinds of ade­quate plans.

“This has def­i­nite­ly served as a wake-up call.”

…

Rep. Den­nis Moore, D‑Kan., who attend­ed Fri­day’s pre­sen­ta­tion, told reporters that the $10.5 bil­lion being pro­vid­ed by Con­gress would only begin to help alle­vi­ate the suf­fer­ing in Louisiana, Mis­sis­sip­pi, Alaba­ma and parts of Flori­da affect­ed by the storm. Moore also echoed crit­i­cism that fed­er­al author­i­ties have been large­ly inef­fec­tive in sta­bi­liz­ing the sit­u­a­tion in New Orleans.

“It’s just hard to believe that we’re watch­ing the tele­vi­sion cov­er­age of this and it’s hap­pen­ing in the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca,” Moore said. “We can and should do better.”

Asked about U.S. House Speak­er J. Den­nis Hastert’s com­ment Thurs­day that it “does­n’t make sense” to rebuild parts of New Orleans below sea lev­el, Moore replied: “I would not have said that. I don’t think that kind of talk is pro­duc­tive right now.”

It’s good that peo­ple are re-eval­u­at­ing the exist­ing plans.