Whenever a disaster strikes, most governments hide behind a veil of fortitude and authority. They make it clear to the population that everything is under control, and order will soon be restored by their efforts. Governments always do everything in their power to convince the population that they’re still in charge regardless of the facts. Which of course makes sense. After all, if everyone knew that the government couldn’t maintain order during a catastrophic event, then they’d want a new government.

As preppers know very well however, it’s often the case that governments aren’t in control of anything during a disaster. Their ineptitude and gross negligence doesn’t go away just because there’s blood in the streets. They don’t rise to the occasion. If anything, quite the opposite happens. The government’s inefficiency and bureaucratic nonsense usually hampers relief efforts, despite the best efforts of most low ranking first responders of course.

What most people don’t realize however, is that average citizens aren’t the only ones to be affected by the poor decisions made by their government. Even the highest levels of our government can quickly lose control of a situation when the SHTF. Disasters are inherently chaotic, and chaos doesn’t discriminate. No matter how much money, power, and expertise is at your disposal, your best laid plans can fall apart when things get real.

And that’s precisely what happened in the United States on 9/11. Most Americans like to think that our government was on the ball in every conceivable way on that day, and that the feds took swift and appropriate actions to deal with the crisis. However, that’s not entirely true. According to NBC, recently declassified documents have revealed that the tippy top of our government was running around with its head cut off on 9/11. Take a look at some of these revelations:

• Three dozen live nuclear weapons were aboard U.S. Air Force bombers at three airbases when al Qaeda struck New York and Washington.

• Because of inadequate communications equipment and procedures, top U.S. officials couldn’t talk to each other or to anyone else. Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted to speak to Bush to know why the U.S. was preparing to go to DEFCON 3 — but the White House couldn’t put him through to Air Force One. Bush had no way to receive phone calls.

• After Bush left Florida, where he had been reading a book to schoolkids, his plane was low on fuel but for hours had nowhere to land.

• Most of the top 10 people in the president’s line of succession, including Vice President Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, either refused to follow the protocol and go to their designated secure sites, or were out of the country, or were never contacted.

• Now-disgraced Speaker of the House Denny Hastert, third in line, observed protocol and was taken to an underground bunker in the Blue Ridge Mountains. But that left him out of touch with all other top government leaders.

• Attorney General John Ashcroft was in a government plane and tried to return to Washington, but was turned away by the FAA.

• Education Secretary Rod Paige, 16th in line to the White House, was left on the tarmac in Sarasota, Florida. He rented a car and drove back to Washington.

That second point is especially worrisome. We nearly went to DEFCON 3 and had no way of communicating with the Russians. Can you imagine how freaked out the Kremlin was on that day? Under different circumstances, 9/11 could have snowballed into an accidental nuclear war.

Keep that in mind for the next time our country is faces a major attack. The government and the media will put on a brave face, but behind the scenes it could be very different. Your politicians and bureaucrats could be quietly panicking or running in all directions in the face a rapidly deteriorating situation that they cannot fix.