This State Is Best Prepared for a Weather Emergency

As Tropical Storm Barry roars ashore in Louisiana and promises to dump inches of rain in the states north of it, several states in the region are very well prepared for weather emergencies, and Louisiana is at the top of the list among all 50 states in terms of its preparedness for such an emergency.

To measure the states least prepared for emergencies is not simple. 24/7 looked at an index of four measures: 1) the number of disasters declared by the state since 1953 as published by the Federal Emergency Management Authority (FEMA), adjusted for the current population; 2) the number of National Guard members in reserve in the state, as published by the U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense Manpower Data Center on March 31, 2019, adjusted for the current population; 3) the state’s FY2017 emergency department budget as a share of that state’s total budget, as published in a May 2018 paper published by SUNY Albany: “Homeland Security/Emergency Management Budgets by Each U.S. State: Why do some states allocate so much more money than others do?”; 4) each state’s Physical Environment and Infrastructure subdomain score out of 10 from the 2018 National Health Security Preparedness Index, which rates states based on the quality of bridges, flood insurance policies, populations in flood zones, climate adaptation plans, and the integrity of water control systems. State population figures are from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Population Survey and are as of July 1, 2018.

In Lousiana’s case, data show that it had 81 disasters declared since 1953 which put it 14th among the states. Its National Guard members are 17,163 or 3.7 per 1,000 residents. Its state emergency department budget is $1.30 billion which is a high 4.59% of the total budget. Its infrastructure score: 6.3 out of 10 which put it tied for 12th among all states. It has a population of 4,659,978.

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The worst prepared state for an emergency among all states could hardly be further from Louisiana. It is North Dakota where only 0.24% of the total state budget goes to the state emergency department.

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