That's a shame in a country with the world's third largest economy. Even Israeli civil defense provided protective equipment (e.g. gas masks, something like 4 million of them) to it's civilians as far back as '91 just in case anyone lobbed missiles with NBC warheads at them. You'd think a country like Japan, with its geological situation, would have done something similar to keep civilians from having to breath radioactive contamination in the event of a disaster. I haven't seen any reports of civilians in the affected areas using privately purchased hazmat protective gear either.

While the US government doesn't provide us with that level of protection here via taxpayer dollars, we can at least buy our own protective equipment through industrial supply channels should we choose to do so. Serviceable surplus protective equipment from international militaries is also available in the commercial market here. One can even buy a current state of the art US military gas mask (a.k.a. respirator) as I have done; however, vendors may restrict sales to those who have been trained on the equipment due to liability concerns (my military training sufficed). One would also be required to sign an ITAR* acknowledgement which the vendor keeps on file.

* International Traffic and Arms Regulation Acknowledgement

These Gas Masks are defined as "Significant Military Equipment" under the rules of the International Traffic and Arms Regulations. Their export to other countries or non-US citizens is NOT authorized by the US Government. They may not be resold, diverted, transferred, transshipped, or otherwise be disposed of in any other country, either in their original form or after being incorporated through an intermediate process into other end-terms, without prior written approval of the US Department of State.

I understand and will comply with this United States Federal Regulation:
Signature: _____________________________________________________

Printed Name: ___________________________________________________

Date: __________________

I think we have the stones to come together and do it. But our country is vast when compared to Japan, the UK, and most of the other countries in the world. We did come together for Katrina. The federal government generally failed but the people came together. Thousands of people gave up weeks of work and headed south to volunteer, supplies poured in from every church and community around the country, the Red Cross was spot on. The military was slow to become involved, due to the failure of Bush to act, but when they did they quickly got things under control (we could and most likely had a whole discussion as to why the Federal gov was slow to intervene, States Rights, failure of the State leadership, etc., but that is water under the 9th Ward).

The response to the major Earthquakes in LA and SF was quite successful.

The response to Mount St. Helens was spot on.

The response to 9/11 would be envied by most nations with less resources hands down.

As Griff eluded to in the first post, it is the long term solutions that we continually fail at and are destine to repeat in the future because of our bureaucracy and failure of federal government.