Huge Koizumi Victory (and Random Disaster Musings)
I get my Japan news supplement from Sean Kinsell's blog. He has lots on the Japanese reaction to Katrina, too--much of it concerned with earthquake preparedness. Here's a sample:
In Japan, what we're told is this: A disaster may render you unreachable. It may cut you off from communication networks and utilities. The appropriate government agencies (starting at the neighborhood level and moving upward depending on the magnitude of the damage) will respond as quickly as they can, but you may be on your own for days until they do. Prepare supplies. Learn escape routes. Then learn alternate escape routes. Know what your region's points of vulnerability are. Get to know your neighbors (especially the elderly or infirm) so you can help each other out and account for each other. Follow directions if you're told to evacuate. Stay put if you aren't. Participate in the earthquake preparation drills in your neighborhood.
If that's the attitude of people in collectivist, obedient, welfare-state Japan, it is beyond the wit of man why any American should be sitting around entertaining the idea that Washington should be the first (or second or fifteenth) entity to step in and keep the nasty wind and rain and shaky-shaky from hurting you. Sheesh.
They say the same thing about being cut off in L.A., but in a less organized fashion (no earthquake drills). Of course, in an earthquake, you have no warning--not a couple of days to get out of town (assuming you have transportation, of course). And there's always that question of where to store the earthquake supplies, since the house could collapse on them, making them inaccessible.