As the nation’s Gulf Coast begins the long recovery process from Hurricane Katrina, L.A.-area officials are pressing their case for more federal disaster preparedness funding.

With L.A. prone to natural disasters such as earthquakes, fires and floods, and also standing out as one of the nation’s major terrorist targets, the needs are immense. Improved communication equipment, more personnel for first responding agencies, stepped-up hazardous materials units and billions of dollars in seismic retrofits are just some of them.

“With Hurricane Katrina, a reordering of priorities is under way. Congress will be hard-pressed to ignore disaster preparedness when there were such glaring holes that were exposed by Katrina,” said Reggie Todd, chief legislative representative in Washington for Los Angeles County.

A similar refocusing of priorities took place after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The federal government doled out billions of dollars in homeland security and bioterrorism defense-related funding, though the funds were not distributed proportionately to the areas generally acknowledged as high risk, like Los Angeles. That threat hasn’t gone away: earlier this month an al Qaeda member named Los Angeles and Melbourne, Australia as next on the list of targets.

But now, the focus has broadened to include natural disasters.

Last week, President Bush ordered the Department of Homeland Security to review all disaster preparedness plans in every major American city, calling it a “national security priority.”

Already, the hurricane’s impact prompted California Sen. Barbara Boxer to introduce a bill that would allocate $1.5 billion over five years to enable emergency communications networks to communicate with each other. Such an upgrade would be vital in Southern California, where numerous agencies would have to respond to an earthquake or terrorist attack.

Meanwhile, Rep. Jane Harman, D-El Segundo, and two other members of Congress are pushing for speedy consideration of a bill to clear radio frequencies for emergency communications systems.

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The full story

is available in the Sept. 19 edition of the Business Journal.