Mayor: Katrina is wake-up call to Las Vegas Valley

Kevin Rademacher

Thursday, Sept. 15, 2005 | 9:58 a.m.

Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman said on Wednesday that the finger-pointing seen among local, state and federal officials struggling to coordinate an efficient response to Hurricane Katrina should serve as a wake-up call to the Las Vegas Valley.

The current patchwork of jurisdictions that make up the valley would create similar problems should a disaster strike here, Goodman warned.

"It would be like a Tower of Babel if a disaster occurred," he said Wednesday in response to a question from an audience member at a Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce lunch meeting. "This is a good time to start talking about consolidation."

Goodman said the number of officials that could be involved -- officials from Clark County, Las Vegas, North Las Vegas and Henderson -- in responding would make the presence of a single voice for information and direction to the public impossible.

He said one of the chief successes for New York Mayor Rudy Guiliani in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks was the ability to address the public with "one police chief and one fire chief."

"There has to be one voice or else it would be chaos," Goodman said. "We're going to start this dialogue (locally)."

Goodman didn't say why he hadn't made this an issue in past years when disaster drills have taken place. Goodman and other city officials also declined to participate in Determined Promise, a large-scale terrorism training exercise in August 2003 that had as one of its primary purposes improving the coordination between the various local entities.

Clark County organized the exercise. Henderson, Boulder City and Mesquite did not participate in Determined Promise and North Las Vegas' participated only on a limited basis.

Goodman said Wednesday that local law enforcement officials have characterized the current system as dysfunctional.

Goodman said so far no formal discussions about consolidation have taken place. He said he has had a conversation with Sheriff Bill Young.

After Wednesday's meeting, Goodman said succeeding in any sort of consolidation would be extremely difficult.

"You're dealing with politics at its worst when you talk about consolidation," Goodman said.

Earlier in the day at the Global Gaming Expo, executives from two Las Vegas gaming companies echoed Goodman's statements that dealing with disaster requires a unified response.

Ira David Sternberg, vice president of communications for the Las Vegas Hilton, said a response plan is critical in order to ensure that accurate information is made available to the public.

"You have to define who is responsible for communicating the scope of the problem," he said.

Rob Stillwell, vice president of corporate communications for Boyd Gaming Corp., said the failure to respond to questions will push the media to find other sources of information during a disaster.

"They will begin to look for alternative ways to do their job," he said.