Percentages about available equipment for emergencies...Nelson and Boxer.

[madfloridian]

Earlier this year Senator Nelson of Florida did some research on the equipment available in case we were hit by more hurricanes here. He also included some other states in his research.

Florida National Guard situation is dire

If the state doesn't have the equipment it needs, Tittle said it can borrow it from Guard units in other states or rent it. But Nelson questioned the lag time and the fact that the other state Guard units also are facing the same depletion of equipment problems.

Florida is not the only state with depletion problems, the GAO report states. Texas only has 51.6 percent of its dual-use equipment available to non-deployed Army National Guard forces. In California, the figure is 50.3 percent. Louisiana is at 49.5 percent, New Mexico is at the bottom of the list with 33.8 percent.

Despite their shortages, "National Guard officials in California, Florida and West Virginia express similar levels of confidence in their forces' ability to respond to typical state missions using currently available equipment," the report states.

"However, some state National Guard officials expressed concerns about whether they would have enough equipment to respond to large-scale events similar to Hurricane Katrina or those described in the Homeland Security Council's national planning scenarios," the report states.

Also Barbara Boxer apparently verified that according to Dana Perino in a press briefing.

Press briefing

Q Dana, back on the wildfires for a moment. Senator Barbara Boxer, this morning in a hearing, suggested that they're limited in the amount of National Guard equipment available to them in California because of commitments in Iraq. Specifically she said, "Right now we are down 50 percent in terms of our National Guard equipment because they're all in Iraq. The equipment -- half of the equipment, so we really will need help." Do you have a response to that?

MS. PERINO: I haven't heard that specifically. I know that that has been a concern. I think in another natural disaster that I'm -- I'm sorry?

Q In Kansas, Greensburg.

I have not turned on the news today, but I was reading here there was some controversy about the available equipment.

[madfloridian]

1. New Mexico is at the bottom of the list with 33.8 percent.

Scary.

[madfloridian]

2. Ed Schultz talking about this now.

.