Despite a history of regular disasters -- earthquakes, hurricanes, bridge collapses, and fires -- Americans seem unwilling to prepare for the inevitable. This may have something to do with our skepticism about government -- at least when it comes to things that can't be justified as fighting terrorism. But the response of government agencies to the recent fires in San Diego tells a different story. There, the firefighters, police, EMTs, and other emergency personnel performed efficiently and heroically. The public officials -- at the local and state level -- who coordinated the firefighting, rescue, and relief efforts, worked well together.
Even FEMA -- the federal agency that bungled the response to Katrina because of the indifference and incompetence of top Bush administration officials -- showed up quickly and announced it would begin collecting relief applications. San Diego's new communications systems -- especially the widely-heralded "reverse 911" system that made thousands of calls to residents warning them to evacuate -- was developed with Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) Homeland Security grant [PDF] funds.
What occurred in San Diego tells a bigger story. Preparing our nation for future disasters requires government at all levels to provide the resources we need to save lives and property. State and local officials have a responsibility to identify the resources we need and to mobilize the public to pay for them. But Washington needs to be a full partner in this effort. We need national leaders who can articulate a sense of common purpose that goes beyond fighting terrorism -- a vision of a nation that builds on hope, not just fear.
The response of government agencies to the San Diego fires, despite inadequate resources, is a stark rebuke to those who claim that government is inherently incompetent -- or even unnecessary. The thousands of volunteers stepped up spontaneously and immediately to help with supplies, cash and service in the relief centers across the county deserve great thanks. But the reality is that we cannot prepare for and respond to major disasters primarily with volunteers. This is why we have government. The only question is whether our public agencies will be adequately funded, trained, and staffed to do the things we need them to do.
When such disasters strike, we appreciate and applaud the courage and dedication of the firefighters, cops, EMTs, and other public employees -- along with the many volunteers -- who almost inevitably rise to the occasion. But after the emergency has passed, we often forget how much we depend on these "first responders" at times of peak peril. Indeed, we make their jobs much harder, and much more dangerous, by failing to adequately invest in the infrastructure, equipment, and staff needed to reduce the human and financial harm brought on by these disasters.
Will the recent fires in Southern California, which cost 14 lives and more than $1 billion in property damage, be a wake-up call about the nation's need to better prepare for what are misleadingly called "natural" disasters -- not only fires, but also earthquakes, hurricanes, and bridge collapses? Of course, nature plays a big part in most of these calamities, but human action can prevent some of them from occurring in the first place, and dramatically reduce the human and financial costs of many others.
The tragic losses from San Diego wildfires, Hurricane Katrina, and the recent bridge collapse in Minnesota expose a troubling neglect in our nation's infrastructure. We have the technology and know-how to fix this problem. What we seem to lack is the political will.
Many disasters, such as hurricanes, fires, and earthquakes, are entirely predictable. We don't always know exactly when they'll hit, or how severe they will be, but we know they'll arrive sooner or later, and that we'd better be prepared for them. Other disasters - such as bridge collapses -- seem more random, but we know that if bridges aren't regularly inspected and repaired, some of them will eventually collapse, even if we can't predict where or when.
We need to ask: how many lives and property damage could have been saved if San Diego was better prepared for the inevitable fire?
Last year, San Diego's fire chief Jeff Bowman resigned, frustrated by the city's failure to hire enough fire fighters, build new stations and purchase more equipment to serve a growing population. He frequently used words like "ill-equipped" and "understaffed" to describe his department.
Indeed, after San Diego's previous major fires -- the Cedar and Paradise Fires just four years ago - Bowman and others documented that San Diego simply doesn't have enough equipment and personnel to meet these kinds of challenges, especially under dangerous conditions, like this year's drought. The wild, intense Santa Ana winds, on top of very dry conditions, ignited the fires. The conflagration would have been difficult to fight under any circumstance, but we put the firefighters and other emergency personnel, as well as area residents, in greater danger by failing to invest in adequate staff and equipment.
San Diego leaders have long known about the city's underfunding for critical infrastructure. A 2005 study by the Center on Policy Initiatives, a local nonprofit think tank, revealed that San Diego's per capita spending on fire protection is the third lowest among major California cities. In terms of the number of firefighters per 1,000 residents, San Diego ranked dead last. According to national firefighting standards, a city the size of San Diego (72.7 square miles; 1.25 million population) should have at least 22 more stations than the 46 it has, and 400 more firefighters than the 901 on staff. The city's budget director recently estimated a long term unmet need of $478 million to get to full capacity and require an additional $40 million or more to the city's annual operating budget, which is currently $1.1 billion. In San Diego's desert like climate, firefighting budgets, staffing levels and available firefighting equipment should be even larger than what standards suggest.
Like San Diego, the unpredictable in New Orleans was the ferocity of Hurricane Katrina. The predictable was the neglect and deterioration of the levees and emergency systems in a below sea-level hurricane prone region. In both cases, we let our fundamental foundations of emergency preparedness and healthy economic growth fall into disrepair
The good news is that Katrina and the Cedar fire, if nothing else, taught us all that anything short of immediate and aggressive response to disaster is wholly unacceptable, if not criminal.
The crisis in San Diego showed that government on the ground, in fact, can be good. There just wasn't enough. Public employees have shown they'll do their best when duty calls. In the end, though, things we value -- like fire protection -- aren't free.
Unfortunately, the crises in San Diego, New Orleans, and Minnesota are not unusual. They are simply vivid examples of how our chronic public underinvestment is harming the country and putting too many people at risk. Our lack of preparedness meant -- in all three disasters -- that we suffered more damage and hardship than we would (and should) have.
Across America -- in rural and metropolitan areas alike -- our infrastructure is crumbling, our public agencies are understaffed, and our equipment is outdated.
We need a national public works plan to help prepare our communities for both major disasters and the day-to-day disasters that undermine our country's strength and our future. We need more firefighters and EMTs to protect us from raging fires like those that hit Southern California last week but also from the more routine but dangerous fires and emergencies that every community faces. We need to maintain and rebuild our highways, roads, bridges, tunnels, sewers, and water delivery systems -- the foundations that make commerce and productive regional economies possible. Now, more than ever, we need to invest in renewable energy and conservation technologies to ensure that we have both a safe environment and increasing productivity as we respond to the environmental and public health impacts of global warming. And we need more schoolteachers, nurses, and vocational skills educators to guarantee that Americans, especially the next generation, are educated and trained for citizenship and the workforce. This is what government is supposed to do and, when provided adequate resources, does well.
For at least a few more weeks, crisis images of heroic firefighters, EMTs and volunteers will remain with us. Moments like this will help us understand the uniquely important role of government to prevent and respond to disaster and to rebuild for the long term. And hopefully, even tax-averse San Diego voters will recognize that there's no free lunch and that we should take as good care of our common public needs as we do of our own individual homes.
But there's an opportunity to expose a deeper level of disinvestment in San Diego and across the country that cause day-to-day, human-made crises in families, weaken our economy, and leave us unprepared to deal with the potentially catastrophic impacts of global warming. We can watch dramatic pictures of fires and floods on the news and online, but we don't see the invisible, though equally as devastating, crises of the millions living without health insurance. We don't see the lost opportunity to preserve the planet that comes only with massive investments in solar and renewable energy or mass transit. We don't see the next bridge we neglect to repair until it's too late. And we don't see the lost productivity for the millions of young people struggling in under-resourced schools and unable to afford a college education.
These investments are no less important than buying more fire engines in Southern California, reinforcing levees in New Orleans, or rebuilding deteriorating bridges in Minnesota. They define the essentials of an American infrastructure that only government can address. These crises give us the opportunity to examine and redefine our fundamental common purpose.
As we head into the middle of a wide-open presidential election year, neither the Republican or Democratic candidates are addressing these fundamental issues. The GOP rivals parrot the same old, increasingly irrelevant and out of touch formula of cutting taxes and dismantling government. But even the Democrats have yet to go far enough to have a relevant and robust debate about the critical role of public investment. So far, none of the Democrats have put forward any bold proposals to rebuild a 21st century infrastructure that both better prepare us for visible public disasters as well as the daily crises of American families.
Donald Cohen is the Executive Director of the Center on Policy Initiatives, a San Diego-based research and policy center.