The feds rained $72 million on the D.C. region this week to help us get ready for what emergency response planners call a “catastrophic event,” as in a terrorist attack of some kind. Could be a dirty nuke or germs in the water or truck bombs here and there. Added to the $38 million that came our way earlier this year for transportation planning, that comes to $110 million of your tax dollars at work.

Which raises a few questions: If a terrorist attack disrupted downtown D.C., would we be safer now than we were seven years ago? Is the region better prepared? Would we be able to evacuate the city? Who’s in charge?

The short answers are: yes, yes, no and no one. Probably more safe, absolutely better prepared, never ready to evacuate. And — we have no homeland security czar.

Jeff Stein, national security editor for Congressional Quarterly, put these questions to Darrell Darnell, D.C.’s homeland security chief. In what clearly became a tense interview, Darnell said there would be “a lot of panic, a lot of chaos” if a small nuclear bomb went off near the White House. Stein pressed Darnell on why a Metro fire and a power outage June 13 brought chaos; Darnell admitted shortcomings in communicating with cops and coordinating with emergency crews.

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This was just a small fire and a few dark traffic lights. What happens if truck bombs go off in five intersections?

Darnell was too busy to speak with me, but I did get some insight from congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, City Administrator Dan Tangherlini and Christopher Geldart, who directs the federal homeland security operation in the national capital region.

Norton, who sits on the homeland security subcommittee, offered some radical advice in case of a nuclear event. “It’s much safer to stay where you are,” she says. “The last thing you want is to have people rush into their cars before we know how to contain it. Trying to run away is idiotic.”

Tangherlini, who will not run because he’ll be helping call the shots, assured me the mayor will be in charge. As for the need for a “czar,” he said: “I would rather have a common playbook than a single coach.”

Chris Geldart is the official most likely to write that playbook. It’s his job to get 17 cities and counties, two states, dozens of federal agencies, the Pentagon — and the president — organized and communicating.

Good news is most of the major lawmen can talk by radio. Bad news is that some of those radios are stored in two counties and must be handed out in a crisis.

Good news is the plan calls for the White House, the governors and the mayor to talk in the first hour of a crisis. Bad news is Mayor Adrian Fenty was out of the loop when an airplane flew near Capitol Hill and Congress was evacuated.

So, yes, we might be safer, but the more immediate question is whether the $110 million will be well-spent. For that answer, we will have to follow the money.