By M.D. Kittle and Rob Kundert
Telegraph Herald (Dubuque, IA)
Copyright 2006 Woodward Communications, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
After a second commercial jet exploded into that towering structure. After so many of the World Trade Center’s inhabitants plunged to their deaths in desperation. After the smoke and fire poured out of the gaping hole in the Pentagon. That’s when America fully realized the unimaginable was happening.
Brian Melton, like his fellow citizens, watched in “shock and horror” as the carnage of Sept. 11, 2001, unfolded on his television screen. But unlike others, he didn’t have the luxury to be stunned. The law enforcement official had to snap out of it and spring into action.
But what do you do in northwest Illinois when the nation is under attack?
“At the time, we basically improvised our response,” said Melton, interim sheriff of Jo Daviess County, a deputy at the time of the terrorist attacks. “We always had plans for natural disasters and major incidents like bomb threats, but we never took into account at our local level that we should have a plan against a terrorist attack.”
Most every state, county and municipality was in the same bind. Who could have imagined terrorists would use planes as bombs, crashing them into the most visible symbols of American strength and security?
And while places like Galena, Ill., and Dubuque, Iowa, seemed millions of miles removed from the epicenter of the surprise attacks, no one could be certain terrorism wouldn’t hit the Heartland.
“Since the unimaginable was occurring before our eyes, we certainly thought there were other places that this could occur that we hadn’t imagined,” said Dubuque City Manager Mike Van Milligen.
Dubuque, too, relied on its emergency plans - plans that hadn’t conceived of the kind of terror that was taking shape. Public safety personnel opened the city’s emergency operation center, a command post previously dedicated to fighting floods and familiar natural disasters, and scurried to defend Dubuque. More than anything, emergency personnel combated fear, lines at gas stations, suspicions and confusion.
“It was important that people go about their daily lives, otherwise the terrorists win,” said Tom Berger, director of the Dubuque County Emergency Management Agency.
Van Milligen asserts the city was prepared that day. But government officials everywhere knew 9/11 would forever alter the way the nation looked at homeland security.
“I thought, ‘This is going to change the world. This is going to change our business,’” said Bret Voorhees, bureau chief for Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency Management Division.
So, five years later, is the homeland secured? Emergency management officials say absolutely not. But they assert America is much better prepared for the once unthinkable.
“The short answer is we are better prepared today than we were yesterday, but less prepared than we need to be tomorrow,” David A. Miller, administrator of Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency Management, wrote in an opinion piece to commemorate the anniversary of 9/11.
“Although there will always be more to accomplish, I believe we are better prepared to respond to disasters, whether they are caused by terrorists or nature.”
Show me the money
In the past five years, Iowa has received more than $100 million in homeland security grants. Miller says 80 percent of that money has gone to local governments, the frontline of the so-called war on terror.
What did those taxpayer dollars buy? Better equipment, better training, better connectivity among emergency management officials statewide, Miller asserts. Perhaps the best thing to come out of 9/11 was the importance of partnerships required in fighting terrorism, the director said.
“Since 9/11, sharing of information has become a priority at the national, state and local levels of government,” Miller said, pointing to Iowa’s “fusion system,” employed in processing and analyzing intelligence information in assessing threats.
Berger said Dubuque-area emergency management widened its web of partnerships, working with agencies like public works and health. “We did work with them before, but now it is a whole other planning partnership,” he said.
In the days after the attacks, the city of Dubuque created a threat assessment team, consisting of law enforcement, firefighters and emergency management. The team rolls out, to some degree, every time the U.S. Department of Homeland Security elevates the nation’s security threat level.
Like the state, the city took inventory of areas considered potential terrorist targets and created plans and procedures to protect the sites. It addressed security at the Dubuque Regional Airport, local utilities, medical facilities and Dubuque’s ports.
“There was even a concern with terrorists using ambulances for attack, and putting explosives in them,” said Dubuque Fire Chief Dan Brown.
Originally, the state of Iowa listed some 11,000 potential targets, but has since whittled the list down to about 1,400. The state Homeland Security office, like its federal counterpart, took a fair amount of ribbing over some of the protected sites on the list.
“Krispy Kreme (Donuts) by itself makes no sense, but when you realize all the places where you see that extensive distribution system, it is a perfect tool to inject a bio-agent into the population,” Voorhees said of the rationale behind the assessment.
Response to 9/11 wasn’t just about securing airplanes from hijackers. It has encompassed all forms of biological, chemical and nuclear contingencies. The state of Iowa took the lead in forming a 12-state partnership focusing on response to agricultural emergencies.
Learning the lessons of recent natural disasters, Dubuque County has created an evacuation center for people and their pets at the Dubuque County Fairgrounds.
“We found that in Hurricane Katrina, people were unwilling to leave their animals behind,” Van Milligen said.
First responders say the most noticeable change in security is the type of equipment and training applied, and the federal government’s open pocketbook for it - at least early on.
The Dubuque Fire Department purchased 52 breathing apparatuses, certified for chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear conditions. Each piece of equipment cost $5,500, with federal funding picking up about two-thirds of the price tag, Brown said. The Dubuque Police Department now has a liaison officer working with the FBI’s joint terrorism task force. And hazardous material teams purchased specialized equipment for the next generation of threats.
“We’ve got things on there I never dreamed we’d have to look for before,” Brown said.
Melton said 9/11 opened the door to funding for important crime-fighting equipment. Jo Daviess County was able to purchase a unified mobile command post, gas masks for deputies and laptop computers for its squad cars.
“Before then, federal and even state assistance was decreasing, almost on a daily level,” the sheriff said. “Unfortunately, it took a terrorist attack for federal assistance to be pushed up to a level that was helpful to us smaller guys.”
Where have all the dollars gone?
Five years later, funding for homeland security appears to be under attack. Voorhees said Iowa’s security budget has shrunk 35 percent each of the past two fiscal years, even as federal requirements climb.
“We are working off the same game plan, which requires training,” he said. “But training 45,000 responders in the state is a program that needs dollars to make it work.”
Federal resources are being shifted to arguably more “vulnerable” positions in a time of ballooning budget deficits.
“I would say it’s more difficult and less probable that small, rural counties like Jo Daviess County are going to get a large share of the pie anymore,” Melton said.
Terrorist targets like New York, however, also have criticized the government for taking funding away.
The priority shift, cops argue, has compromised other crime-fighting initiatives.
“We have seen some funds previously devoted to law enforcement now going to homeland security,” said Dubuque Assistant Police Chief Terry Tobin. He points to drug enforcement dollars being redirected to anti-terrorism measures.
Brown said one federal fire-fighting grant program has been cut by two-thirds in recent years, while the competition for the limited pool of funding has grown.
After all the initiatives and campaigns, local first responders offer mixed opinions about the security of the homeland.
Tobin, like others, says there remain many “vulnerabilities” across the country. And government officials from the president on down have argued that 9/11 took away America’s belief in its own sense of safety.
“How can you plan for something that is so evil?” Melton said. “Just when we think we are prepared, our imagination apparently fails us.”