**LEAD STORY**
This past Wednesday, Oakland, California, Fire Chief Lamont Ewell, who is also the president of the International Association of Fire Chiefs, told the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Wednesday, that it would be the responsibility of local firefighting, police and emergency medical units to cope with a terrorist attack that used nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. He also said that they were not prepared for the challenge.
Ewell affirmed something that the Emergency Response and Research Institute (ERRI) in Chicago has been saying for a number of years. The chief told the packed Senate hearing room, "It will be local fire and emergency service organizations ... who have to pick up the pieces. Of the overall government efforts to prevent and respond to terrorist incidents, these local fire, law enforcement and emergency medical services agencies are the least prepared to respond to a chemical or biological terrorist incident."
As a demonstration, Ewell paraded two firemen into the hearing room. One firefighter was dressed in typical firefighting gear. The other wore a fully encapsulated hazardous materials protection suit. Ewell told the senators that neither was sufficient to protect the firefighters from some types of chemical or biological attack.
The chief said that the best option was to have the federal government train and equip at least 50 emergency personnel in each of the largest 120 cities in the United States to prepare for the inevitable eventuality of a terrorist chemical or biological attack. ERRI, in several previous reports, has suggested the formation of local/regional joint "strike teams" of specially trained Fire/EMS/Police personnel, who could immediately be "called out" to start of the process of managing the incident and advising other emergency responders.
According to Ewell, The needed protective gear for emergency responders would cost about $450 per person, just about the same as current fully encapsulated HazMat gear. Each emergency worker would also need to receive 250 hours training. The cost for the entire project suggested by Chief Ewell is estimated to be about $2.7 million. Other experts say that the costs of a truly effective program could be higher.
Is a terrorist chemical and/or biological attack inevitable? A report released on the same day by the Senate Subcommittee says that it is. The report said, "It is not a matter of IF, but rather WHEN such an event will occur. Many of the terrorist groups of today appear more and more likely to utilize weapons of mass destruction."
The report said that federal agencies are somewhat better equipped and trained to handle a terrorist incident that could involve nuclear, chemical and/or biological weapons, but these same agencies were hampered by what are considered to be "turf battles", something not unheard of in regard to any number of federal agencies.
These "turf battles" were seen as major failures of the federal agencies to communicate with local authorities, according to Senate staffers. This analysis was written after a "full field" exercise that was called "Mirage Gold" that took place in October of 1994 in New Orleans, Louisiana.
The senate review of that exercise was highly critical of the role that the Federal Bureau of Investigation played. The FBI is officially designated as the lead agency in a terrorist crisis situation -- BEFORE an explosion or whatever occurs. The critique said that the FBI acted in "imperial fashion" and just plain took over the situation, instead of "leading it". Great difficulty was reported in the transition of control between the FBI and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
A former U.S. government counter-terrorism coordinator, Morris Busby, said that the problem is aggravated by the FBI's "tremendous operational capabilities." He also said at Wednesday's hearing, "They (The FBI) interpret lead agency as -- 'Let's get everybody out of the way so we can do what we do.' If you're having turf battles when you're trying to handle a crisis, you're going to have real problems," Busby said.
The report also said that in the 1994 New Orleans exercise, the FBI did not consider the protection and safety of the general population should it not had been able to find and disable the nuclear device that the agents were seeking in the exercise. The FBI, the critique said, was much too focused on capturing the perpetrators and overlooked the evidence that others, such as the U.S. Energy Department's NEST Team and the Defense Department, needed to disable the nuclear device.
Other similar training exercises in large cities in the United States were also said to be far from successful. In fact, ERRI has yet to be able to document a "highly successful" major exercise involving chemical/biological attacks, anywhere in the United States. In a 1995 Los Angeles exercise, it was said that "a number of doctors literally 'threw in the towel'" and said that they and their facilities had become contaminated after treating injured and exposed patients. EMS responders had apparently committed the "cardinal sin" of bringing "chemically dirty" patients into medical facilities.
There is an even more detailed report of an April 11, 1995, training exercise that was conducted in New York City. The results of this mock sarin gas attack on the New York subway system, similar to what happened in Tokyo, Japan, on March 20, 1995, were said to be so bad that a follow-up exercise was reportedly canceled by the mayor's office to avoid potential embarrassment. This no-notice city mobilization drill occurred at 1900 EST at a Manhattan L-train station, located at 14th Street and First Avenue.
In the New York City exercise, the first arriving fire and police units were said to be theoretically "killed" by exposure to chemical gas. Upwards of 100 of the first responders were said to be killed by their immediate exposure. Other problems cited were: command posts located much too close to the scene. Incompatible radios and frequencies that hampered communications. The training situation was described as "chaotic", at best, until the FDNY's Hazardous Materials Company arrived upon the scene.
A "classified" report on the exercise said that first arriving firefighters failed to even put on their breathing apparatus. The first arriving NYPD officers found out that their police radios did not work properly in the subway. The New York Transit Police, who do have radios that work properly in the subway system, were not notified of the incident for three to five minutes and responded "late" into the incident.
The NYPD then set up a "frozen zone" which barred all non-essential personnel within a radius of 1,000 feet. However, this "frozen zone's" size was configured for bombs -- not lethal gas. Even a reconfiguration of this "frozen zone" was said to be inadequate and improperly done. Any major wind shift could have allowed the poison gas to envelop the command post.
NYC*EMS crews did not do much better. Many did not escape making potentially deadly mistakes. Even after personnel were informed that there was toxic gas in the subway station, they still set up their first triage area inside of the station. Other EMS providers entered potentially dangerous areas to "rescue" patients, and would have died, had the scenario been real. A well known EMS chief, who asked not to be identified, put it all in perspective; "That's what drills are for...to identify the problems and fix them." We at ERRI couldn't agree more.
Since 1987, the Emergency Response and Research Institute (ERRI) has been publishing position papers on this subject and warning emergency responders to become prepared for a chemical/biological eventuality. In light of the Senate investigation, it seems that finally the message is starting to get across -- "First responders must be prepared for this eventuality." Emergency planners and agencies that think they are prepared, should review what happened at the New York City mock gas attack drill in 1995. Or better still, review the response of the Tokyo Fire Dept. and EMS services in the March 20th attack by Aum Shin-Rikyo. In reality, today, few cities in the United States would fare much better in such an exercise.
For a related report on this subject, please: Click Here to Review ERRI's May, 1995 Report--Chemical Attack; Are We Prepared?