Prior to the license plate replacement program that resulted in the current Pennsylvania plates, the administration of former Gov. Tom Ridge conducted a study of how best to carry out the replacement process. It had been so many years since the former plates had been put in service that officials were perplexed about how to manage such a huge undertaking.

Never mind that until the 1960s, license plates had been replaced annually; until then, the idea of annual stickers had not been implemented.

The Ridge administration eventually chose a "staggered" replacement system in which new plates were phased into operation.

Fast-forward to 2007, a time when the administration of Gov. Ed Rendell is dealing with the fallout from a massive failure in emergency preparedness. The snow and ice storm of Feb. 13-14 exposed a massive lack of preparedness for responding to such a weather event.

By the time of the Ridge administration, state officials had forgotten how to replace license plates, a non-urgent undertaking. After a few winters in which the state escaped brutal conditions, lack of preparedness — or complacency over the necessity of being prepared — allowed a response breakdown that resulted in some drivers on interstates being stranded in subfreezing temperatures for more than 20 hours.

At least in the eyes of those motorists, it was a good idea for the state to abandon its former slogan about having a friend in Pennsylvania — which was on many of the license plates that the current series replaced. Many of those motorists will think twice about visiting this state in the future when similar conditions are forecast.

The February response breakdown was, in a word, unconscionable, for a state that always has endured winter conditions. No excuses for the breakdown were — or are — acceptable.

It's commendable that Rendell is accepting blame for what occurred; as the state's chief executive — and as former President Harry S. Truman acknowledged in regard to his own office more than 60 years ago — the buck stops with him.

But he must make it clear that he will not tolerate any repeat of what occurred last month. He must make it clear that, although he does not intend to fire anyone over last month's flawed response, the next time he won't be so forgiving.

Rendell released letters dated Tuesday that order the Transportation Department, the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency and state police to take specific steps in response to a consultant's study dealing with the breakdown. Much of what is detailed in those instructions is communication-based, between the state agencies and between state and local governments.

But it's troubling that a major finding of the consultant's study is that senior state officials have a remarkable lack of familiarity with emergency procedures. Considering all of the attention given on the national level to the federal government's emergency-response failures during and after Hurricane Katrina, the natural instinct for this and all states should have been to beef up all aspects of emergency preparedness and response.

The lack of familiarity with emergency procedures is at the core of why more than 150 miles of interstate highways in the commonwealth were blocked during the Feb. 13-14 storm, and why it took days to reopen some portions of Interstates 78, 80 and 81.

That's why, when three senior Tranportation Department managers in Berks County retired in January, no one felt the urgency of ensuring that the new, "green" managers received the effective crash course in emergency response that they should have gotten.

For them, the February storm was on-the-job training, to motorists' detriment.

During the storm, the term "road closure" did not mean the same thing to every agency involved in the storm response, the consultant's report revealed. Hopefully the words "never again" will convey the necessary — comprehendible — message to everyone who played a part in last month's massive failure.