In Iowa, a Disaster Plan That the Public Can’t See

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Watching and reporting on the disaster that was the governments’ response to Hurricane Katrina’s destruction of New Orleans, the Des Moines Register asked an obvious question of its state government: Can we see our disaster plan? What the paper got was a heavily redacted 86-page document. Among the sections blacked out was the line of succession, because it might make the governor’s potential successors “vulnerable.” Of course, that information is in the state constitution. Wonder how much of the Louisiana’s disaster plan was similarly kept from anyone who didn’t have “need to know” clearance? Or FEMA’s? (9/13/05)