Neighborhood Emergency Response

As many of you know, I am working on a new film project - a dark comedy about the possibility of a nuclear attack on one of our cities. A friend recently sent me some comments by Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt about bird flu. Here's a report from ABC:

In a remarkable speech over the weekend, Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt recommended that Americans start storing canned tuna and powdered milk under their beds as the prospect of a deadly bird flu outbreak approaches the United States.

This whole bird flu thing, and my own script, got me to thinking - it's easy to critize the government, but what would I do differently if I were in charge? I actually may have come up with an answer. Later in his speech, Michael Leavitt talked about how a pandemic like bird flu would be like hundreds of Hurricane Katrina's, flooding our government with local requests to help. Ultimately, he suggested, we're on our own in such a catastrophic situation - thus stokc up on tune and powdered milk.

But, considering that even our own government is telling us that local response to crises is our best bet, why not start a nationwide, "neighborhood emergency response corps," modeled on the neighborhood watch system. This would invovle identifiying local volunteers, some basic training, and some local planning. In this way, when an emergency hit - terrorists attack, earthquake, hurricane, bird flu - the first responders could be our own neighbors. Each block of the country would look after itself, or at least have a plan and basic structure to attempt to do so. Imagine the comfort of seing your own neighbors band together to help each other. Imagine how much FEAR could be relieved by just having such a plan and training in place. Americans are very generous people - and in a crisis, they'd like to be able to help each other. It would go a long way to making our cities safer in the event of national crises... and relieve the national government to fight the most pressing and dangerous threats.

Anyway, let me know your thoughts on this!