Excepted from the ENN Daily Report Friday - 12/20/96 - Vol. 2, No. 355
Officials Say We're Not Ready; Training Battles Ensue
By Steve Macko, ENN Managing Editor
(ENN) Montgomery County, MD -- According to Chief LeRoy Oettinger of the Montgomery County, MD fire
department, "a whole bunch of firemen and policemen are going to die in that first hour." Further, Oettinger is quoted by
the Associated Press as saying, "They'll want to help, but we're ill-equipped, at the local level, to do anything." Oettinger is
talking about a potential emergency service response to a chemical or biological attack on the United States.
The Washington-area Council of Governments has reportedly been working on a joint response plan to a chemical attack,
hoping to establish a model program in the D.C. area, that could then be used to develop plans for other municipalities. So
far, however, Oettinger and others say that "we are not prepared."
One of the major problems, according to the experts, involves funding of training and equipment for local fire, police, and
EMS agencies. Reports from Washington say that between $40-65 million dollars is supposedly in the federal pipeline to
be distributed to agencies in the nation's 150 largest cities. But, little or nothing of consequence has, so far, come flowing
out the other end, according to Clark Staten of the Emergency Response & Research Institute.
Staten, who has been studying and reporting on the emergency response to terrorism for more than 10 years, says that
another problem associated with the funding process is that there are currently several organizations that would like to take
control of who gets what training funds and how. "Both fire service and police organizations have publicly stated that they
believe that they should be the 'lead agency' to write a curriculum and develop and present training programs," Staten told
ENN today in an exclusive interview.
"Secondarily, it would appear that EMTs and paramedics, who would certainly be called upon to provide advanced
medical care for the victims of chemical or biological exposure, have almost been completely left out of the planning and
financing process," the retired Asst. Chief Paramedic added. "It is already becoming a political and economic 'football' in
some circles...with emergency and government agencies, professional organizations, unions, and corporate entities all
scrambling for their piece of the pie," Staten added.
"The time has come for a 'super committee' of the best and brightest people, from all public and private sectors, to come
together and get this funding, training, and equipment to the people who really need it...the men and women out there 'on
the street', who are really protecting our communities and will be faced with the danger when it comes," the veteran
emergency planner said.
Finally, Staten strongly recommended that representatives of all facets of the police, fire, EMS, disaster, and military
community must come together to work to develop efficient plans and assure the rapid and effective implementation of
training programs. After all, Staten concluded, "When (not if) some 'wacko' decides to release a chemical or biological
weapon into one of our cities...everyone is going to have to work together to solve the problem, or we'll have a disaster
within the disaster...and a whole lot of people are going to die unnecessarily."
(C) Copyright, EmergencyNet News Service, 1996. All rights reserved. Redistribution without permission is prohibited.