Officials: Bay Area lacks disaster plan coordination

Despite persistent signs that terrorist organizations are planning for attacks in the United States, the Bay Area still has no regional plan for dealing with such an attack and minimizing its casualties. The Bay Area’s cities and counties are spending millions of federal dollars equipping first responders for terrorist events, but several emergency-response, business and government leaders said Wednesday that the effort is largely uncoordinated and lacks an overarching strategy. The blame, they say, spreads from the Bay to Sacramento, where the governor’s Office of Emergency Services is recovering from budget and staff cuts and hasn’t done its job of helping plan for manmade disasters as much as it has natural ones. “They’re not playing,” Marin County emergency services manager Christopher Godley told business and government leaders Wednesday at a homeland security forum. “The reality is the state continues to cut the staff for planning and even administering the (homeland security) grants.” Full Story