We can never completely prevent another tragedy like the Boston Marathon attacks from happening. But every American should ask themselves if their community is as prepared as it could be.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Americans do not have a good track record when it comes to preparing for disasters, unless they see a clear possibility of personally being in harms way.
It's especially important since September 11 for people to be trained for the unexpected. We want to try to make sure people are safe.
This is a basic function of Congress to keep the government running. And so, what we ought not to do is play politics with those who have been affected by disasters.
As the third anniversary of the September 11th attacks draws near we must ensure our nation is prepared to handle the continued threat of violence and terrorism on our country.
But I warn my colleagues that we will fail in our efforts to protect the homeland if we do not take additional steps to avoid a trade-off between protecting ourselves against terrorists attacks and preparing for and responding to natural disasters.
Great tragedy has come to us, and we are meeting it with the best that is in our country, with courage and concern for others because this is America. This is who we are.
We cannot stop natural disasters but we can arm ourselves with knowledge: so many lives wouldn't have to be lost if there was enough disaster preparedness.
If we had a terrorist attack, the way the people respond is going to determine whether that attack is just a tragedy or whether that attack becomes an all-out disaster.
Well, our concern has to do with the period prior to 9/11, up to and including the catastrophe that occurred. And thank goodness, we're not obliged to make assessments of what's going on now and deal with these current events.
We know that terrorism is going to happen in the future, and we need to be prepared for it.
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