Terrorism's cost hits home

State and local governments are building an expansive network to combat potential attacks. How far they go depends on money

by Aaron Chambers

Delbert Marion feels as though he’s in the bull’s-eye. East St. Louis, where he’s the police chief, is at the center of the state’s most densely populated area outside metropolitan Chicago. It’s heavily industrialized, too, including chemical plants in nearby Sauget. And, situated across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, it’s a major transportation hub. In short, Illinois’ Metro East region could make an attractive target for terrorists.

“We sit in the middle of the nation,” Marion says. “We have in the area some of the very things that these individuals would target as a way of crippling the economy of our nation.”

So Marion is mobilizing. Following the September 11 terrorist attacks, his department renewed contacts with the state police and with police departments in surrounding jurisdictions. Over the past several months, they’ve been developing plans to respond to potential terrorist events.

As it stands now, the East St. Louis police department has a mutual aid agreement with other police departments in St. Clair County and neighboring Madison County, which can be useful when departments need extra help in an emergency. Without it, local police officials’ authority would be limited to their own jurisdictions and to surrounding jurisdictions within the same county.

So, the agreement is a start. But, in dealing with a catastrophic attack, Marion says mutual aid is no substitute for the dollars necessary to equip and train his officers and other so-called “first responders,” including firefighters and emergency medical technicians.

“We’re not too far out of sync with what needs to be done because most of the things are in place, except for extensive manpower and equipment,” Marion says. “We just don’t have money. And money is a big issue.”

Another is politics. At stake is not only the number of federal dollars available to respond to terrorism attacks across the country, but how those dollars will be distributed.

Illinois has already received $7.6 million in homeland security grants from the feds, money that was allocated through the U.S. Department of Justice during fiscal years 1999, 2000 and 2001. The Illinois Emergency Management Agency, which, together with Gov. George Ryan’s Terrorism Task Force, is coordinating the state’s anti-terrorism plan, anticipates another $7 million in justice department grants during the federal government’s current fiscal year, which ends September 30.

About a fifth of those funds is earmarked for local governments to prepare their first responders with basic protective equipment should they encounter a terrorist threat. The state emergency agency, which is purchasing and distributing the equipment to local officials, has offered St. Clair County equipment worth $30,000. The county asked for 10 self-contained breathing apparatus units worth about $3,000 each: eight for the county’s hazardous material, or hazmat, team and two for the health department.

Even more dollars may be on the way to East St. Louis and other Illinois local governments. In his proposed fiscal year 2003 budget, President George W. Bush asked Congress for $3.5 billion to fund state and local government homeland security initiatives. Under that plan, Illinois would receive an estimated $100 million from the pot during the federal government’s fiscal year 2003. The money would be directed to the state, but the state would be required to redirect 75 percent of those dollars to local governments. The states could provide more, of course. And the governor’s task force has pledged to raise to 80 percent local governments’ share of the federal homeland security dollars that come to Illinois.

Thus far, the state has put the bulk of those federal grant dollars into equipping and training local government-based response teams and into statewide response teams designed to assist in the case of a terrorist event.

Beyond that, Gov. George Ryan’s administration is kicking in state funds to buttress the state’s terrorism response network, though not nearly as much as the amount proposed by President George W. Bush. Last November, the Illinois legislature approved a supplemental appropriation of $16.9 million in general revenue funds for homeland security measures, including $2.85 million for the Department of Public Health to enhance its laboratories for bioterrorism testing and another $2.5 million for the department to begin building a pharmaceutical cache.

Illinois officials have reason for concern. Chicago is the third largest city in the nation and a top transportation hub. The rest of Illinois is woven with urban centers such as Rockford, Peoria and Champaign. And Illinois has more nuclear reactors — 11 operating reactors at six sites — than any other state, according to the state Department of Nuclear Safety.

Since its formation two years ago — long before September 11 and the subsequent anthrax scare — the governor’s task force has been organizing a multi-front strategy to combat terrorism. Major components include creation of special teams to respond to bioterrorism and weapons of mass destruction, coordination fire departments and hazardous material teams across the state and construction of an electronic disease surveillance system.

“By and large the state’s role in both terrorism and disaster planning is as the second responder,” says Matt Bettenhausen, the state’s homeland security director. “It’s to provide the additional support to those who are out in the field, who are the first responders, the police and firemen working the streets in each town, city and village throughout the state.”

There are few critics of the state’s spending priorities. The only controversy — a quiet one, to be sure — is whether federal dollars for homeland security should be controlled by the state through the task force or funneled directly to local governments.

Kenneth Alderson, executive director of the Illinois Municipal League and a recent addition to the task force, says he’s comfortable with the group’s plan, so long as the money is distributed under an agreement between the state and local governments that specifies how that money should be spent and within what priorities. Some percentage of the money, he says, must be allocated for first responders.

“If you’re setting up hazmat teams to respond to an area, I don’t know that it would be highly beneficial to have Virden, Illinois [a small town southwest of Springfield] have a hazmat team,” Alderson says. “And if Virden, Illinois, was getting the money directly and they said they were going to have the hazmat team, I start seeing problems: Who has the long-term ability to support the hazmat team, and the personnel, equipment and training and all that type of thing?”

Nevertheless, control of the dollars has become part of the debate. On Capitol Hill, lawmakers could consider an alternative to the Bush Administration’s plan for homeland security spending. U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a New York Democrat, is sponsoring legislation that would funnel most of the $3.5 billion directly to such cities as New York and Chicago, rather than through the states. She contends cities know best how to satisfy their public safety needs. Her plan is backed by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, which represents the nation’s larger cities.

Closer to home, Peoria County Sheriff Chuck Schofield has raised concerns about distribution of the dollars, too. Schofield’s county, together with Tazewell and Woodford counties and the city of Peoria, is expecting a grant — almost $75,000 — from the Emergency Management Agency. Since the tri-county region already has two high-capability hazmat teams, the four governments decided that most of the money will be used to equip law enforcement personnel with protective gear. They also asked the state to purchase a decontamination trailer to serve the whole region.

Still, Sheriff Schofield calls “risky” the state task force’s plan to strategically distribute the federal money, rather than simply giving it to such cities as Peoria. He notes that terrorists could strike anywhere.

“I’m on rocky ground even looking for basic equipment to run the department, let alone go out and get the equipment with local dollars that I’d need to take care of an event such as that,” Schofield says. “I really don’t know of a lot of places that are in a lot better shape than we are.”

Kay Harmon, director of Peoria’s Emergency Services and Disaster Agency, which is directing distribution of the grant monies, takes a different tack: “It’s not enough money. But I think we were fortunate to get what we got and we continue to apply to wherever we can find grant money.”

Budgets are tight. As Illinois local governments construct their spending plans for fiscal year 2003 — most local budget years begin May 1 — the Illinois Municipal League’s Alderson anticipates that some will consider how much they’ll need to spend to support whatever homeland security measures are implemented. Specifically, he expects local officials to be concerned about maintaining equipment once they’ve acquired it and continuing to train personnel to respond to the possibility of extraordinary circumstances.

“If Springfield has a hazmat team and it doesn’t get used for a period of time, two or three years, you’re either going to have to have simulations to keep those people trained or they’re going to have to go back through a refresher to have them trained,” he says. “Well, that means time they aren’t in the fire station or whatever. I think there’s going to be an increased cost of operation as we look at the future.”

Indeed, Michael Chamness, director of the state Emergency Management Agency, says local governments will be expected to cover their share of the costs of keeping equipment and personnel current.

In some cases, local governments already have been stretched to strengthen their security systems. Between September 11 and December 31, the city of Chicago spent $2.04 million in overtime to staff its police, fire, water, streets and sanitation, aviation and transportation departments, according to the city budget office. And in its fiscal year 2002 budget, the city appropriated an additional $76 million for “emergency preparedness” measures.

Smaller communities are struggling to cover their own costs. “It hasn’t been cheap,” says Jim Finley, chief of police for Leland Grove, a tiny municipality encircled by Springfield. “Obviously, you can’t place a price on the value of security and heightened responsibility — the response to situations and the ability to react. I don’t think anybody is complaining about the cost; the only complaint, obviously, is that we didn’t anticipate it.”

Nevertheless, police departments, fire departments, mayors and others involved in anti-terrorism efforts at the local government level seem generally content to let the state decide where to aim the money. Because Illinois is working with finite resources, they say, it’s appropriate for the state to target those resources where they’re most needed.

Of the $7.6 million in federal grants, the state is spending $1.6 million on fitting first responders with basic protective equipment. Counties must apply to the state Emergency Management Agency for a share of the money, which is being distributed in grants of at least $15,000. As of mid-April, the agency was still responding to applications.

Another $1.6 million will be spent to fully equip and train members of the state’s 32 hazardous material teams — and four teams that are evolving. The remaining $4.4 million will go to train and equip three nascent statewide interagency response teams.

“The way I look at it, we have one opportunity to build a lasting capacity in this state because if you study federal programs, they start and they stop,” says Chamness, who is chair of the governor’s task force. “We’re not going to be funding the fight against terrorism as the top priority in this country for the next 20 years.”

As a result, the task force is building a statewide terrorism response network on multiple fronts. The federal funds are targeted at beefing up response teams at the local level, but the task force is aiming those dollars at high-population centers and at regional teams designed to respond quickly to a terrorist threat in any corner of the state. In addition, the task force is coordinating the efforts of existing emergency response teams.

There’s a long-term payoff. If a worst-case scenario does not materialize, the state and local governments at the least will have a better system for dealing with some other disaster, such as a tornado or an outbreak of salmonella. As Chamness puts it, there’s a “two-for-one value” in building the state’s emergency response network.

“If you build your public health system so it can adequately respond to a bioterrorism event, the system also will be better prepared to respond to natural outbreaks of disease,” he says. “And within the fire service, if you create a better ability to respond to a high rise collapse based on a terrorist attack, you also will have built your system to respond to a high rise collapse because of tornados, earthquakes, fire, what have you. That’s the approach that we’re going to take.”

The state’s efforts on this front have been under way for some time.

In January 2001, the Emergency Management Agency signed an agreement with the Mutual Aid Box Alarm System, a coalition of some 600 fire departments, as well as other fire departments and hazardous material teams throughout the state. If the governor officially declares a disaster, the associated fire departments and hazardous material teams can travel outside their jurisdictions while enjoying worker’s compensation and liability coverage from the state. They also would be entitled to reimbursement from the state for expenses incurred in their travel.

In St. Clair County, Fairview Heights Fire Chief Don Feher says his firefighters have provided mutual aid to other firefighters in the region. But that cooperation, he says, has “pretty much been predicated on a handshake.”

If his firefighters were injured or his equipment destroyed in another jurisdiction, it wasn’t clear who would be liable.

“Should we have done that? Should our insurance provider replace our truck for us because we destroyed it outside our community? Should workman’s comp cover our people because they weren’t fighting a fire in our jurisdiction?” he asks. “So with the [official mutual aid] agreement in place, now we have a formalized document that says we’re going to help one another. And that removes a lot of that gray area. Our people are more protected.”

As for hazardous material incidents, there are 32 designated teams located throughout the state, 27 of them rated to respond at the highest level. Another four teams are in formation. Jay Reardon, Northbrook’s fire chief and the president of the Mutual Aid Box Alarm System, is directing upgrades. He says the teams are being equipped in stages over three years and by the end of the second year — September 30 — all 36 teams will have the highest capability. “And every one of those teams will have identical equipment with a capability for chemical, biological and nuclear [incidents],” he says. “We don’t want 50 different systems out there. We want one statewide system with standardized equipment and comprehensive, reasonably good coverage.”

St. Clair County’s hazardous material team is among those receiving new equipment from the state. That team, formed in 1999, already had basic diagnostic tools and protective equipment. The first equipment installment from the state included a range of advanced and military-grade diagnostic tools to test for such chemical agents as nerve gas. The team also expects to get a Bioguardian tool that will permit team members to test for such biological particles as anthrax or smallpox.

“It’s kind of like a home pregnancy test; it will indicate a color change and it has an instrument that reads the change if the change is faint,” says Brian Donley, a chemical engineer and team member. “If the suspect biological agent is present, it will test positive. We’re initially going to be set up for anthrax. But when you purchase the tickets [that register the color change] for it, you can do smallpox and botulism and a lot of the other common biological agents.”

Chamness of the state’s emergency disaster agency says the best approach to strengthening the state’s response to hazardous materials is to build upon local capabilities and to ensure, through mutual aid agreements, that those teams will respond all over the state.

“Every community doesn’t have to mirror every other community in terms of their response capability,” he says. “The secret is that every community has to have access to those specially trained, specially equipped response capabilities.”

On another front, the task force has spent the past year assembling three special interagency response teams.

The teams — based one each in the northern, central and southern regions of the state — are composed of highly trained state troopers and members of the secretary of state’s bomb squad. They include representatives of the Illinois Emergency Management Agency, the state Department of Public Health, the state Department of Nuclear Safety and the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. All members of these teams have undergone more than 140 hours of hazardous material training.

Chamness says the teams were formed after a training exercise at the state fairgrounds. Participating law enforcement agencies were asked to defuse a terrorist incident in which terrorists were threatening human lives with a hazardous material. But the state police couldn’t handle the job because they’re not trained to deal with hazardous material. And the National Guard civil support team, which is trained to handle weapons of mass destruction, couldn’t do it because it’s not designed to take the lead in a domestic terrorist situation.

Thus, the task force put together the special response teams. The core group consists of law enforcement officers trained to handle weapons of mass destruction — biological, chemical and nuclear or radiological agents. The department representatives were added because their expertise and resources may be necessary to handle a disaster: public safety for biological incidents, environmental protection for chemical incidents and nuclear safety for radiological incidents.

Certainly, if Illinois does sustain a terrorist attack, the Federal Bureau of Investigation would be in charge of any long-term incident. But it could take hours for the bureau to assemble its troops and assume control. The state response teams are designed to respond early and, at the least, keep an incident contained.

Doug Brown, first deputy director of the Department of State Police and vice chair of the task force, says the new teams could respond most anywhere in Illinois within 30 to 90 minutes. “We’re not talking about 25 people being there in 30 to 90 minutes, but we would have a contingent on hand that would begin to assess, deploy and that sort of thing,” he says. “We might have some difficulty with drive times in far southern Illinois or if the Dan Ryan [expressway on Chicago’s South Side] was jammed up, but pretty much anywhere in the state we can be there in 30 to 90 minutes.”

The task force also is working to advance cooperation among local law enforcement agencies. It asked the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police and the Illinois Sheriffs Association to develop a plan for doing so. Forest Park Police Chief Edward Pope, chair of the association’s anti-terrorism committee, says his group is studying whether police departments should have a statewide mutual aid agreement similar to agreements among fire departments.

In fact, legislation pending in the Illinois House would grant police officers authority in other jurisdictions if they are invited by officials in those jurisdictions. Elmhurst Deputy Police Chief Peter Smith, vice chair of the police association’s committee, says that while the legislation was conceived before the September terrorist attacks, such enhanced powers would enable police departments to better combat terrorism on a multijurisdictional basis.

“It could be useful not only for terrorism incidents or natural disasters — those are the two big ones that come to mind — but also for day-to-day police work, as well, where [officials in] one agency just need more help than what they can put on the street themselves and there’s no existing mutual aid agreement between those two communities,” Smith says. “It could be anything from a civil disturbance to a big fight at a bar or a banquet hall.”

Public health is also a component of the state’s terrorism response network. Essentially, public health departments are responsible for identifying and coordinating response efforts to outbreaks of disease or, in the case of terrorism, a biological attack. Through the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Illinois is expected to receive $42 million to expand that infrastructure — $30 million for the state public health department and $12 million for the Chicago health department.

Dr. John Lumpkin, the state department’s director, says Illinois intends to use a portion of that money to build an electronic disease surveillance network. He envisions a Web-based system connecting his department with local health departments, local health care providers and laboratories. Those entities already operate a network for reporting disease outbreaks. But that reporting exists by phone, fax and mail. Putting the system online would put detection and analysis in virtual real time.

“By enhancing the public health infrastructure, it’s not wasted dollars,” he says. “If we never have a bioterrorism attack, we will have improved our agency’s ability to protect the health of the public in other ways.”

The state department also is planning to stockpile antibiotics that could be used to fight an outbreak of anthrax. The federal government already has such a stockpile, but it could take 12 hours to get supplies to Illinois. Lumpkin says that might not be fast enough to treat first responders and others who have been exposed. The state stockpile would be geared to serve in the interim.

In the Metro East area, St. Clair County Health Department Administrator Kevin Hutchison says his office has streamlined and consolidated divisions in an effort to better prepare for a biological threat. In addition, his agents are striving to learn more about potential attacks, and to pass that information along to local health care providers. “All of us now know a lot more about anthrax than we did before last fall, and the learning curve was pretty sharp, but we’re trying to learn more about the threats that may be coming down the line,” he says.

As for the additional $7 million expected from the federal government in the next few months and the $100 million that also could be on the way, Chamness says his task force is studying how that money should be spent. He suggests a few items, though, that probably will be on the list because they are part of the task force’s long-term strategy. They include equipping an Urban Search and Rescue Team that would be based in the Chicago area, building the statewide mutual aid component for law enforcement agencies, implementing a statewide disaster reporting/information system that would link state, county and local responders, and meeting increasing training needs for first responders.

Chamness and others who are building the state’s terrorism response network can’t know exactly what to expect from terrorists should they target Illinois.

But they are preparing for the worst.

Don Feher, the Fairview Heights fire chief, is most succinct: “Who in the hell would have thought somebody would have run into the World Trade Center building, and who in the world would have thought somebody would have said, ‘I’ve just poisoned you with anthrax because you opened this letter’? But there are ignorant people out there who have done that sort of thing, and they have to be dealt with.”

Illinois Issues, May 2002

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