PA emergency response 'a disaster waiting to happen'

An interesting and disturbing column by John Forrester in the Reading Eagle says that despite spending hundreds of millions of dollars, Pennsylvania's emergency response agency is no more prepared to handle a crisis than it was before 9/11/

From Forrester's column:

Pennsylvania has received some $388 million in federal Homeland Security funding over the past five years. But there are questions as to whether that spending really has made us safer.

An audit of security spending, conducted by the state joint Legislative Budget and Finance Committee, found emergency response programs in Pennsylvania are a disaster waiting to happen.

Forrester also points out that the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA) failed miserably in responding to a February 2007 snowstorm in a corner of the state. Imagine how PEMA would respond to a terrorist attack.

Read the full column at the newspaper's Web site.