CNN, March 25: "Most Americans who live within 50 miles of a nuclear power plant aren't prepared for a nuclear emergency and don't think the police, hospitals and other emergency services in their community are prepared either, according to a new national poll."
That's just typical: Every time a disaster occurs someplace, a survey shows that Average Americans are embarrassingly unprepared for the same disaster to happen to them. The crisis at the Japanese nuclear power plants is the latest in a series of catastrophes that have exposed our insufficient planning and panicking. For example:
- Six years after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated New Orleans, an ABC News poll finds that most Americans are not prepared for a hurricane that sets off a flood that reaches their ceilings and wipes out their towns. What's more, the poll revealed that average Americans still keep important things -- like food, furniture and hamsters -- in their homes and have not practiced escape routes to their roofs.
Asked about these repeated failures to properly panic and prepare, the average American confessed, "I forgot about the asteroid during the flood because I was building a gamma ray to fight off the aliens that escape from the volcano. Am I safe yet?"