[pnews-news] Unprotected

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Progressive News & Views (since 1982)
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Our Unprotected Region

You might think 55 months would be enough to produce an anti-terrorism plan.
You'd be wrong.

Monday, April 3, 2006; A18

IT FELL TO A Senate committee to unearth the startling news that the 
Washington region -- home to the seat of the national government, 12 
jurisdictions and more than 5 million residents -- lacks a strategic plan 
to guide preparations for future attacks. Senators on the Committee on 
Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs were especially disturbed to 
learn last week that nearly five years after the Washington area fell 
victim to one of the horrific Sept. 11 attacks, emergency response 
officials from Maryland, Virginia, the District and the federal government 
still have not come to agreement on a long-term homeland security plan. 
Millions of unprotected residents, who also learned of this vulnerability 
for the first time, probably share the senators' distress.

We are the first to acknowledge that the regional makeup doesn't lend 
itself to coordinated planning. Getting two states, the District of 
Columbia, a host of jurisdictions, nearly three dozen police departments, 
Capitol Hill, the executive branch and an independent judiciary to come 
together and produce a consensus plan is harder than herding cats. 
However, the absence of a comprehensive regionwide plan to guide actions 
in the event of a terrorist attack is a far greater threat to public 
safety than the bruised feelings that might result from losing a 
bureaucratic war. Now missing: a tested evacuation plan for the region; a 
communications system that allows counties, states, cities and federal 
agencies to speak with each other; a coordinated firefighter and police 
response plan for regionwide emergencies; and federal leadership at the 
regional level.

Money apparently is not the problem. As The Post's Eric M. Weiss reported, 
the Washington area, designated as high-risk, has not spent $120 million 
of the federal anti-terrorism grants it received from 2002 to 2004. What's 
lacking is a sense of urgency in emergency planning.

It really doesn't matter that the District has a preparedness plan or that 
Fairfax County knows what to do should a disaster occur. As demonstrated 
by the Sept. 11 attack on the Pentagon, the incursions into area airspace 
and the tractor sit-in on the Mall, one disaster or emergency can affect 
jurisdictions and agencies throughout the region. Thomas Lockwood, the 
Department of Homeland Security's director for the national capital 
region, told the Senate committee that regional officials are making slow 
but steady progress on producing a plan. There's no place for "slow" in 
this effort. Securing the region is a job that can't wait.

C 2006 The Washington Post Company

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/02/AR2006040200 
883.html?referrer=email&referrer=email


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