L.A. seeks preparedness funds in wake of Katrina disaster.

As the nation's Gulf Coast begins the long recovery process from Hurricane Katrina, L.A.-area officials are pressing their case for more federal disaster preparedness funding.

With L.A. prone to natural disasters such as earthquakes, fires and floods, and also standing out as one of the nation's major terrorist targets, the needs are immense. Improved communication equipment, more personnel for first responding agencies, stepped-up hazardous materials units and billions of dollars in seismic retrofits are just some of them.

"With Hurricane Katrina, a reordering of priorities is under way. Congress will be hard-pressed to ignore disaster preparedness when there were such glaring holes that were exposed by Katrina," said Reggie Todd, chief legislative representative in Washington for Los Angeles County.

A similar refocusing of priorities took place after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The federal government doled out billions of dollars in homeland security and bioterrorism defense-related funding, though the funds were not distributed proportionately to the areas generally acknowledged as high risk, like Los Angeles. That threat hasn't gone away: earlier this month an al Qaeda member named Los Angeles and Melbourne, Australia as next on the list of targets.

But now, the focus has broadened to include natural disasters.

Last week, President Bush ordered the Department of Homeland Security to review all disaster preparedness plans in every major American city, calling it a "national security priority."

Already, the hurricane's impact prompted California Sen. Barbara Boxer to introduce a bill that would allocate $1.5 billion over five years to enable emergency communications networks to communicate with each other. Such an upgrade would be vital in Southern California, where numerous agencies would have to respond to an earthquake or terrorist attack.

Meanwhile, Rep. Jane Harman, D-El Segundo, and two other members of Congress are pushing for speedy consideration of a bill to clear radio frequencies for emergency communications systems.

"Before Katrina, we had trouble getting traction on this bill. But now that the problem was on display in the response to Katrina, we've had folks in the broadcast industry coming to us and offering to help," Harman said last week.

Harman was also scheduled to host an emergency preparedness summit this past weekend where experts were to take stock of and prioritize the region's needs.

Among them are hundreds of millions of dollars in seismic retrofits of bridges, hospitals, schools and thousands of older commercial and multifamily buildings. While state and local governments have taken the lead in ordering and funding seismic retrofitting, the price tag is so high that it could take decades to complete without a large injection of federal funds.

Manpower needed

Also on local wish lists: more protective hazardous materials suits, more rescue helicopters, more supplies to evacuate people and, above all, more personnel for first-responding entities.

"We are already short 1,200 deputies. You can have all the preventive machinery in place, but without the manpower in place to use them, we won't be well-prepared," said Steve Whitmore, spokesman for L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca.

Then there are the region's aging sewer, water and power systems, said Mitch Englander, chief of staff to L.A. City Councilman Greig Smith.

"We have to do this preventative maintenance that was not done in New Orleans and to do it, we will need financial support from both Sacramento and Washington," he said.

Last week, L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was in Washington, pressing his case for more federal funds. The trip, which was scheduled before Hurricane Katrina, was focused on securing funding for transportation, gang prevention efforts and especially homeland security. On Wednesday, Villaraigosa met with Harman, ranking member of the House Select Committee on Homeland Security, and with Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, who serves on the subcommittee dealing with emerging threats.

(Last week, the Department of Homeland Security announced $25 million in grants to the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles to beef up defenses against terrorist attacks.)

The big question is the federal government's ability to raise funding levels. The $62 billion in federal aid approved earlier this month for the Gulf Coast states is a supplemental appropriation and does not come out of existing budgeted programs. But it still adds on to the federal deficit, and President Bush last week left no doubt that tens of billions of dollars in additional spending for hurricane relief and recovery is yet to come.

Before Katrina, the Congressional Budget Office projected the deficit for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30 to be about $330 billion, while the projected deficit for 2005-06 was expected to be about $314 billion. Already, Congress has shelved consideration of extending the tax cuts that the Bush Administration wanted to make permanent.

"There is of course concern about the deficit," Harman said. "It may mean that we may not be able to do some other things that we might have liked."

That's one reason why Villaraigosa made his trip to Washington last week. But as was the case with homeland security spending, there is also concern that in the rush to push forward with disaster preparedness projects, some areas not facing extremely high risk levels may get their projects funded. Besides adding these questionable projects to the federal deficit, this pell-mell approach could shortchange areas like Los Angeles that are at high risk for major catastrophes.

"The big concern here is that this truly critical emergency will attract billions in spending on 'me-too' opportunistic emergencies that will overwhelm federal spending," said William Ahem, spokesman for the Tax Foundation in Washington D.C. "The key is to prioritize the areas of greatest risk for critical emergencies and fund those."