Area Disaster Planning Gets More Muscle

"We don't really see a huge need for it. So we never spent much time on it," said Mark Penn, Alexandria's emergency management director. In most disaster scenarios -- even chemical or biological incidents, he said -- residents would be safer at home rather than jamming highways and exposing themselves to possible fallout.

But Penn is putting the finishing touches on a mass-evacuation plan for Alexandria, one of several new local plans done in concert with the broader regional effort.

Such planning intensified after Homeland Security did a nationwide study in the wake of the chaotic response to Hurricane Katrina. The agency determined that the D.C. region met just 13 percent of the requirements for responding to a major disaster. The agency made it clear that cities and states receiving Homeland Security grants had to step up their preparations.

"Is it probable we'll ever totally evacuate the National Capital Region? No. But should we plan for that event, in case it happens? Absolutely," said Chris Geldart, the Homeland Security representative for the D.C. region. He has made catastrophic planning a priority.

The regional evacuation blueprint scheduled for completion in November is not a full-blown action plan. It provides an overview of local jurisdictions' plans and examines mutual-aid agreements, officials said.

The plan will provide a database with detailed information on evacuation routes and transfer points where pedestrians can take buses out of the area, said Katie McDonald, who is coordinating the regional project. Such pickup sites could include Metro parking lots, she said.

"Because those places have been selected ahead of time, it's one less thing to coordinate," said McDonald, who works for the D.C. Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency. Bus drivers "will know where they need to go; other leaders and police chiefs will know where they need to position their people," she said.

The plan will also provide an inventory of shelters in the region that can accommodate people during a local evacuation. The Red Cross has been inspecting the shelters and has positioned 48 trailers in the area with cots and blankets bought with Homeland Security funds.

But the evacuation plan leaves many details to local governments -- which sometimes have widely varied policies.

For example, the District, Montgomery County and most of Northern Virginia are producing large-scale evacuation plans, but Prince George's is not.

"It would be a challenge if we had to evacuate that many people," said John Erzen, a spokesman for Prince George's, which has about 850,000 residents. "It would be a challenge to find someplace to put them. So we encourage people to shelter in place."

Another example: The District's evacuation plan is on its Web site. But Fairfax will not make its new plan public, said Merni Fitzgerald, a county spokeswoman.