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It is tempting to believe that the lessons of Katrina apply only to New Orleans. But nine out of 10 Americans live in areas that are at risk of all sorts of perils, from earthquakes and hurricanes to wildfires and tornadoes. In fact, The Earth Institute estimated last year that more than half of the world's population is exposed to one or more "major natural hazards."

A year after Katrina, new polls show that many Americans think they will luck out -- and things like hurricanes will affect somebody else less fortunate than them.

Time magazine says:

In a new TIME poll of 1,000 American adults taken on the eve of the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, fewer than one in five (16 percent) said they are personally "very well" prepared for a natural disaster or public emergency. Of the rest, about half explained their lack of preparation by claiming they don't live in an area at risk for disasters. Even among Gulf Coast residents, a mind-boggling 43 percent said they don't face much risk.

The truth is humbling: About 91 percent of Americans live in places at a moderate-to-high risk of earthquakes, volcanoes, tornadoes, wildfires, hurricanes, flooding, wind damage or terrorism, according to an estimate calculated for Time by the Hazards and Vulnerability Research Institute at the University of South Carolina. We increasingly live in dense, coastal cities and consequently get hit by more frequent, more costly disasters.

But our curious confidence in our own safety keeps us from planning for the predictable catastrophes we know are coming. Even though about half of those polled said they have personally experienced a natural disaster or other public emergency, only a third had a plan for how their family would communicate in a catastrophe. Likewise, only a third had bothered to buy additional insurance to protect themselves or their homes from disaster or made physical changes to their homes.

Still, 30 percent of the people polled said that Hurricane Katrina had motivated them to make some preparations in the past year. And that's a good thing, since more than half disapprove of the job that federal and local governments have done to help in the recovery from Katrina. Ironically, those in the Gulf Coast states -- who should be most disappointed of all -- show slightly higher approval for the job government has done at all levels and have greater confidence that the government could handle a major disaster.

In May, the Red Cross released a poll that showed that, while the majority of Americans think they are prepared for a disaster, they have not taken even the most basic steps toward preparation.

In the meantime, FEMA claims it has retooled itself.

Here is how FEMA says it's been changing its preparedness since Katrina:

1. Dramatically Increasing the Amount of Relief Supplies

Four times the emergency meals and ice, and 2.5 times the water are available this year than were available prior to Hurricane Katrina. These supplies have the capacity to sustain 1 million people for a period of one week. [...]

2. Updating the National Response Plan

The NRP guides the federal response during certain disasters. Applying the lessons-learned from the last hurricane season, DHS has revised the NRP to refine and clarify this critical document. [...]

3. Retooling FEMA for the 21st Century

FEMA is being provided 21st century tools and technologies to maximize the agency's response capabilities.

• Building a Cutting-Edge Tracking System for Relief Supplies [...]

• Strengthening Communication and Situational Awareness [...]
  

• Enhancing FEMA's Customer Service [...]
  

• Expediting the Pace of Debris Removal [...]
  

• An Experienced and Capable Leadership Team Has Been Named for FEMA [...]
  

• Filling Vacancies at FEMA [...]
  

4. Improving Coordination with Local, State, and Federal Partners

By reviewing state and local disaster plans, collocating decision-makers, and pre-designating federal leadership, DHS is improving coordination across all levels of government.

• Reviewing State and Local Disaster Plans [...]
  

• Collocating Decision Makers [...]

• Pre-Designating Federal Disaster Coordinators [...]
  

• Fully Leveraging the Resources of the Federal Government [...]
  

• Roles and Responsibilities [...]
  

5. Emphasizing Individual and Community Preparedness

Individual and community preparedness are civic virtues. By taking simple steps to prepare, citizens can allow authorities to devote scarce resources to those who need help the most.

• Prepare an Emergency Supply Kit and Family Emergency Plan [...]

• Listen to Local Authorities [...]
  

• DHS is Working with Gas Stations to Ensure the Availability of Fuel [...]
  

Coverage of the Anniversary

Many Sunday papers did big Katrina anniversary stories.

The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune ran a large front-page piece headlined "On Their Own: In the absence of clear direction, New Orleanians are rebuilding a patchwork city."

The (Biloxi, Miss.) Sun Herald called its five-day package of coverage "Where We're Going." It's an impressive collection of stories, which will, by the end of the week, include a piece about the changing face of the Gulf Coast, reports on the volunteers who helped in the relief efforts and a status report of the recovery. The package also included an interesting piece about how sales-tax revenues in Mississippi rose enough to pretty much offset what was lost from gaming-industry taxes.

Here is coverage from other regional papers:

• The Advocate in Baton Rouge, La.
  

• The Advertiser in Lafayette, La.

• The Times in Shreveport, La., did a huge front-page project Sunday called "Ready for Recovery" (The Web site's package is not quite as large as the print content.)

• The News-Star in Monroe, La., headlined a package called "Rising from Ruins" on Sunday.
  

• Sunday's lead story in the Delta Democrat Times (in Greenville, Miss.) focused on "what Biloxi did right." The story focuses on how the town's mayor has become a media darling for making "all the right moves" during and after the storm.

• The Mississipp Press [PDF] focused on, among other things, how the storm affected students.
  

• Given that Houston took in so many New Orleans residents, it was not a surprise that the Chronicle did a big anniversary spread on Sunday.

Here is an opus Web site from The Times-Picayune with lots of multimedia -- including an interactive map showing how the flooding occurred, timelines of the disaster and hundreds of photos sent to the Web site from readers.   

Here is a Times-Picayune blog of how nationwide media outlets are covering the New Orleans recovery story.

NOLA.com (the Times-Picayune's site) includes a nice "recovery by the numbers page which includes this graphic [PDF] -- showing pre- and post-Katrina populations by ward, hotel capacity, hospital capacity, number of people living in FEMA trailers, percentage of the population with electricity and the state of New Orleans schools.

There are half as many hospital beds now and 25 percent fewer hotel rooms are available. Only 56 of 117 Orleans Parish schools have opened their doors a year later. 

How Much Damage?

Don Powell, federal coordinator for Gulf Coast rebuilding, put the events of one year ago in an easy-to-understand perspective in a press briefing last week:

By any measure, I think we would all agree that this event perhaps was the largest catastrophic event to ever hit America. I've heard Gov. Barbour say that if you exclude Mississippi, and only include Louisiana, it's the largest catastrophic event to ever hit America. If you exclude Louisiana, and only include Mississippi it's the largest catastrophic event to ever hit America. Ninety-thousand square miles were hit by the storm, an area the size of Great Britain, and more than three times the area that was affected by the Mississippi flood of 1927. Eighty percent of New Orleans, 80 percent of the city of New Orleans was flooded, underwater. That's an area that is seven times the size of Manhattan, and it was underwater almost two months.

More than 1.5 million people were directly affected, and more than 800,000 citizens were displaced, were forced outside of their homes. More than 204,000 homes were severely damaged or destroyed, and 75 percent of those homes were in Louisiana, and that's about seven times as many as were affected by Hurricane Andrew.

Fifteen billion dollars has been paid out by the National Flood Insurance Program, and that's more than all of the other claims combined since the inception of the Flood Insurance Program in 1968. Eighty-one thousand businesses were directly impacted; 220,000 jobs were initially lost, and ... 180,000 remain lost.

What About the Floodwalls?

If another storm hit New Orleans, could the floodwalls and gates hold this time?

WWL-TV has a live camera shot of levee work online.

The Army Corps of Engineers produced a 6,000-page report accepting blame for the failure of the New Orleans levees. Last week, the Corps released a 12-point plan of action to change its priorities, processes and planning in the Gulf Coast region.

The Corps keeps a running Web page on projects it is running and planning in Mississippi and Louisiana.

I hope you will take a few minutes and look at the piece that my Poynter colleagues and I just posted. Failure to read this piece and understand its implications could cost your newsroom a bundle. (How's that for a tease?)

The story is about how photographers who own the copyrights to the widely used videos and photos of JonBenet Ramsey are being used in violation of copyright laws. Zuma Press, which represents nearly all of the JonBenet pageant photographs and videos, is asking TV networks, wire services and newspapers to pay for the use of the pictures which have been widely used/misused for a decade.

This is a vitally important subject in our industry, especially for the freelance photojournalism world.

Ernesto Threatens

Here is the National Hurricane Center's mapping page.

We Floridians are making sure we have enough duct tape, Pop-Tarts and bottled water.

If you don't understand the Pop-Tart reference, Wal-Mart discovered that, just before hurricanes, strawberry Pop-Tart sales jump about seven times their normal rate in Florida.

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