The next big one? Katrina is scary wake-up call to disaster-prone U.S. cities

Katrina turned to fiction the comforting idea that "Uncle Sam is going to ride to the rescue," said Los Angeles City Councilman Jack Weiss, who has written a report for the city on preparing for terrorism. "That's the message to every city as a result of Katrina."

There were other messages. After seeing New Orleans residents refuse to leave their homes, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he'd "get a court order, if we have to," to get people out.

The mayor of Moore, Okla., Glenn Lewis, heard another message: Citizens, he said, should increase sevenfold the amount of food and supplies they store at home — three weeks' worth, instead of the previously recommended three days' — "after we saw the disaster in Louisiana."

His town is in the heart of tornado country. A twister that hit Moore in October 1998 damaged more than 100 homes, and a massive tornado the following May did more than $1 billion in damage and killed about 40 people.

"You have to have a local plan," Lewis said. "If you've got to wait on FEMA or the state and you don't have a plan, you're going to wait a long time. It will seem like forever."

Self-sufficiency

Self-sufficiency has been turned into a formal public awareness campaign in San Francisco by Mayor Gavin Newsom — based on the theme of "72 hours," the amount of time he believes people should presume it will take for outside help to arrive in the event of a massive earthquake.

"What we're asking people to do is to be prepared to take care of themselves and their families (for that length of time) . . . so that we can focus on rescues, focus on putting fires out," said Anne Marie Conroy, director of San Francisco's Office of Emergency Services and Homeland Security.

Disaster planning and infrastructure improvements are business as usual in the Bay Area. Even so, Katrina has helped officials focus their planning. Since Katrina, Conroy and others have shifted their thoughts to the problem of displaced citizens.

"Every time there's a major event like the London bombings, the tsunami and now, Katrina, we always go back and revisit our plans," Conroy said, "and we always go back and look at what went right and what went wrong . . . and adjust our plans."

Linda Johnson, who lives with her husband and two cats in a rented one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco's Mission District, said Katrina has made her realize she needs to gather together in one accessible place her scattered disaster supplies.