Report finds many states ill-prepared to support kids in disaster
| Washington
Eight years after Hurricane Katrina, most states still don't require four basic safety plans to protect聽children in school and聽child聽care from disasters, aid group Save the聽Children聽said in a report released Wednesday.
The group faulted 28 states and the District of Columbia for failing to require the emergency safety plans for schools and聽child聽care providers that were recommended by a national commission in the wake of Katrina. The lack of such plans could endanger children's聽lives and make it harder for them to be reunited with their families, the study said.
The states were: Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, and Virginia.
"Every workday, 68 million聽children聽are separated from their聽parents," Carolyn Miles, Save the聽Children's聽president and CEO, said in a statement with the group's annual disaster report card. "We owe it to these聽children聽to protect them before the next disaster strikes."
After Katrina exposed problems in the nation's disaster preparedness, the presidentially appointed National Commission on聽Children and Disaster issued final recommendations in 2010 calling on the states to require K-12 schools to have comprehensive disaster preparedness plans and聽child聽care centers to have disaster plans for evacuation, family reunification and special needs聽students.
Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, and Michigan do not require any of the four recommended plans, the study found, while D.C. and the remaining states each require one or more of them.
The number of states meeting all four standards has increased from four to 22 since 2008, the report said. The group praised New Jersey, Tennessee, Nebraska, and Utah for taking steps over the past year to meet all four standards.
Save the聽Children聽said it found gaps in emergency preparedness during a year when school shootings devastated Newtown, Conn., Superstorm Sandy wreaked havoc along the East Coast and tornadoes ravaged Oklahoma.
Miles said such disasters "should be a wake-up call, but too many states won't budge."
A spokeswoman for the National Governors Association declined comment on the report, referring questions to the various states.
