Preparedness for and response to disasters has become a core responsibility of public health agencies. In North Carolina, public health preparedness is coordinated and carried out by three levels of actors: the NC Division of Public Health, 85 local health departments, and a set of intermediate groups (Public Health Response Teams) that provide technical assistance to local health departments. A system-wide assessment was commissioned in 2009 to inform the refinement and possible restructing of the system. That assssment asked stakeholders at each level of the system to report on the strengths and limitations of their own agency and of the other levels of the system. This paper will present results that focus specifically on the congruence between self-assessments and external assessments. In some areas, the reports were largely in agreement (e.g., the relative strength of different forms of organizational capacity within local health departments). However there were also areas where outside stakeholders identified major weaknesses not reported by those within the respective agency.#DisasterandEmergencyManagementEvaluation #2011Conference #HealthEvaluation