By Fran Spielman
Chicago Sun Times
Copyright 2007 Chicago Sun-Times, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
Is Chicago truly prepared for a natural disaster or terrorist attack — a question central to Mayor Daley’s bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympic Games?
You can’t help but wonder after Chief Emergency Officer Cortez Trotter’s defensive response to last week’s federal report suggesting that first responders in Chicago and Cook County are ill-prepared to communicate when the Big One hits.
Now Trotter is openly saying there’s a lot more Chicago can do to prepare for an event that would even remotely resemble the Sept. 11, 2001, attack that killed nearly 2,800 at New York’s World Trade Center.
“I don’t want to start pointing out where we’re vulnerable, but there are areas within the city where we can do better when it comes to hardening high-profile targets,” Trotter said.
“We can do better in terms of testing our system. I don’t believe we ever can do enough training. We can do better in making sure we are able to get the buy-in from all the people of Chicago in terms of their personal preparedness.”
Since 2003, Chicago and Cook County have received $105 million in federal Homeland Security funds, with $63 million going to the city. It was nowhere near enough to finance the area’s disaster wish list. Last year alone, the city and county requested $172 million and got $52 million.
Most, if not all, improvements Trotter has in mind would require even more federal funds.
COMMUNICATIONS
This was the focus of the federal report, which cited a “fragmented regional communications infrastructure” with “insufficient channels for joint operations,” prompting many first-responders to use cell phones.
Trotter said the hangup is the Federal Communications Commission, which has finally agreed to give police and fire departments more radio frequency channels to improve communications, as demanded by the Sept. 11 Commission. But not until 2009.
Over the next year, the Chicago Fire Department is expected to take delivery of a $22 million digital radio system tailored to eliminate communications breakdowns like the one that contributed to six deaths in an October 2003 Loop high-rise fire.
Police officers will be able to communicate directly with each other, instead of relying on 911 center dispatchers. Firefighters and paramedics will use the same hand-held radios for direct communication.
EVACUATION
City Hall is still working on an evacuation plan for the city and is revising its plan to empty the Central Business District after an unprecedented fall drill that involved 3,000 high-rise workers.
The evacuation plan for the Central Business District has three degrees of seriousness. A Level 1 incident would trigger a partial evacuation of the Loop and could involve closing local streets and mass-transit routes. Level 2 would involve even more street closings and CTA impact. Level 3 would cut off all access to and from the downtown area and expressways would be closed to all but emergency vehicles.
More detail and support services are being added to prevent a repeat of what happened in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, when dozens of buses that could have evacuated victims sat idle underwater.
HARDENING TARGETS
Last year, a perimeter gate at Midway Airport that had no security camera, despite Daley’s affinity for video surveillance, was breached by an intoxicated man who wandered onto the airfield. The embarrassing incident showed how vulnerable high-profile targets like CTA subways and the city’s water-filtration plants still are in spite of the city’s network of 2,200 surveillance cameras.
“In the water system, there are areas where we can harden our main and remote facilities. We’ve installed cameras and detection equipment at each of our water plants. But, there’s yet another level we can go to with the proper resources. . . . To do more is not inexpensive,” Trotter said.
“We’d like to continue to put cameras in our subways and biochemical detection systems all around our critical infrastructure — not just in subways, but in places like government buildings.”
TRAINING
A federal disaster drill in September unmasked communication weaknesses in the Chicago area. A regional drill is now in the works. But Trotter said he would like to do more of that.
“We’d like to do something on a larger scale to simulate different types of events and see how we’d respond to a natural disaster or man-made event. I would like for us to bring together our neighboring communities and train more,” Trotter said.
The need for education extends to the 20-hour “community emergency response training” course for civilians. “We’re only training 40 to 50 percent of the people we’d like to train annually,” he said.
BIOTERRORISM
The city has a secret plan to deal with a chemical or biological attack. It includes a “cache of antidotes,” but Trotter said more funding would make the plan better. Police officers, firefighters and Health Department workers have gas masks. Hospitals have their own. But more are needed for the general public.