A year ago the phrase &8220;emergency management&8221; did not mean much to most of us. It was something we just didn&8217;t think about much.

For decades the category just occupied a line on a government budget, a line most citizens rarely considered.

Emergency management personnel normally don&8217;t get much notice except, perhaps, when they show up at the disaster drills and look important. Or when they interrupt our prime time TV shows to tell us about approaching bad weather.

But in the back of our minds we expect that during all the other &8220;down time&8221; they were working up a darned good plan of what to do when disaster strikes and help guide the rest of us. They were supposed to be sharp and ready when disaster strikes.

When Hurricane Katrina pummeled the coast not quite a year ago, we all realized changes were needed. Our plans didn&8217;t work well. Much has been made of the county&8217;s outdated emergency plan and the money spent getting suggestions on how to update it.

While revising the plan is needed, the plan itself isn&8217;t the problem.

The real problem lays with the persons in charge of that plan, communicating the plan and implementing it &8212; Adams County Emergency Management Director George Souderes and his bosses, the Adams County Board of Supervisors.

Souderes was on administrative leave when Katrina struck so perhaps his personal performance might have been better than the outdated plan he left behind may reflect. What&8217;s troubling, however, is that months and months after the &8220;OK, now what?&8221; moments immediately after Katrina, we appear officially to be no better off.

Emergency management cannot be an afterthought any more. We need to get our heads on straight. We need to get everyone on the same table about what needs to happen when disaster strikes.