Is West Virginia ready to handle a major catastrophe?
Federal homeland security officials say no. They gave West Virginia the lowest score in the nation during a recent assessment of disaster plans.
State officials say they are baffled that West Virginia scored so poorly. The state is ready for most disasters, including floods and chemical leaks, said Jim Spears, state Secretary of Military Affairs and Public Safety.
The federal report is the latest black eye for an agency struggling to recover from allegations of waste and fraud by former state homeland security officials.
Spears readily admits that his agency has a lot of room for improvement. In fact, his honesty may have contributed to the state’s poor rating, he said.
"Not all those other states told the truth. West Virginia, by telling the truth, was painted in a negative way in the media," he said.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security recently reviewed state plans for dealing with a major catastrophe, such as a large hurricane or a terrorist attack. A team of federal officials looked at a variety of factors, including plans for evacuation, health care and communication during a disaster.
West Virginia was rated "not sufficient" on 60 percent of the factors tested, the highest percentage in the nation. Forty percent of factors were "partially sufficient" and none were sufficient, according to DHS spokeswoman Joanna Gonzalez.
In the next-worst state, hurricane-ravaged Louisiana, 29 percent of the readiness factors were rated not sufficient, 67 percent partially sufficient and 4 percent sufficient.
Gonzalez said each state was sent a detailed scorecard, but state officials say they have received no details about their rating. They received only a one-page sheet with a pie chart, an outline of the state and no other information, said Joe Thornton, spokesman for the state Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety.
The federal report, released last week, mentions West Virginia once by name. It praises the state for having a volunteer network to handle catastrophes.
"I don't understand how we can have a best practice in one area and still not be sufficient in anything," Thornton said.
Spears has one theory about the poor rating. He said the state is not ready to receive a flood of evacuees from the East Coast and admitted it to federal officials.
For example, millions of people might try to cross into West Virginia if a “dirty bomb” explodes in Washington, D.C., and contaminates the area with nuclear fallout, he said.
"We're very well prepared for floods and those domestic types of emergencies," he said. “Where we lack is in the same areas where almost all the other states lack preparedness: a regional approach on how to handle major catastrophic events. We realized this beforehand and are taking steps to correct it.”
He said his agency is leading a regional effort to prepare for an East Coast evacuation. West Virginia is hosting an August conference at Canaan Valley with homeland security officials from Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia.
"We told them 18 months ago, the state is not prepared to handle such an influx from the Washington, D.C., area," Spears said. “Frankly, it fell on deaf ears for the first six months I put it out to D.C. decision-makers. However, when Katrina hit, they saw the need for better evacuation planning.”
The department has been working for more than a year to fix problems that were first brought to light by the Gazette.
Earlier this year, state taxpayers were forced to reimburse the federal government and various vendors for $4.6 million in improper expenditures by the Division of Homeland Security.
A recent legislative report showed the agency could account for only $2.7 million of the $13.2 million in emergency equipment purchased in the previous three years.
Local emergency units probably received most of the equipment, but poor inventory control increased the chances some items were lost or stolen, the audit said.
In April 2005, Regional Response Team program director Neal Sharp resigned amid an investigation into emergency equipment purchases, his use of the state credit card and his flights on the state airplane and helicopter.
Two other state homeland security officials resigned later that year, including former budget director Lee Gray and former Regional Response Team coordinator Steve Rogers.
Their boss, former Office of Emergency Services director Stephen Kappa, was fired in April 2005 for undisclosed reasons after he reported Sharp’s alleged wrongdoing.
No one has faced criminal charges based on the inquiry by the Legislature's Commission on Special Investigations.
