US Cities, Fed. Unprepared For Recovery From Dirty Bomb

(Analyst's note: This is a troubling report.)

by Mickey McCarter

US cities would be so overwhelmed by a dirty bomb or nuclear bomb attack that they would invariably rely upon the federal government for recovery, but agencies like the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) have not yet completed their planning for delivering such assistance, congressional investigators warned Monday.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) surveyed 13 major US cities and their states and related FEMA regional offices, discovering that each quickly would require assistance from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for analysis and cleanup activities, which would significantly mitigate the impact of a radiological dispersal device (RDD) or an improvised nuclear device (IND), Gene Aloise, GAO director of Natural Resources and Environment, testified before the House Subcommittee on Emerging Threats, Cybersecurity, and Science and Technology.

“However, we found that the federal government has not sufficiently planned to undertake these activities,” Aloise stated. “For example, FEMA has not issued a national disaster recovery strategy or plans for RDD and IND incidents as required by law. Existing federal guidance provides only limited direction for federal agencies to develop their own recovery plans and conduct exercises to test preparedness. Out of over 70 RDD and IND exercises conducted in the last five years, only three have included interagency recovery discussions following a response exercise.” ....