ERRI EMERGENCY SERVICES REPORT
EmergencyNet News Service
Thursday, 08 Feb, 2007
Vol. 11, No. 039
"We'll Help You Better Understand Your world..."
INDEX:
-- Four Dead in Van Vrs. Train Crash
-- A.C. High-Rise Evacuated After 2-Alarm Fire
-- Bush visits Department of Homeland Security
-- National security arm to test 'Render Safe' for local agency use
-- U.S. advice for terror attacks is a little scary
-- Broward's emergency director to resign post
Current U.S. National General Terror Alert Level - (YELLOW) ELEVATED
Aviation Sector Alert Level USA = Orange/High
FIRE/CRASH RESCUE NEWS
Four Dead in Van Vrs. Train Crash
THORSBY, AL: A freight train struck a van at a rural Alabama crossing early Thursday, killing four men on their way to work and injuring several others, authorities said. The van was hit at about 6 a.m. at a crossing near U.S. Highway 31. The tracks were marked by a sign but had no cross bars or flashing lights.
Four people were injured in the crash and there were "multiple fatalities," Chilton County Coroner Randy Yeargan said. A sheriff's deputy at the scene said four people were dead.
One woman at the scene who said she was a relative of two men in the van said they were headed to work at a construction site. She declined to give her name, and said she didn't know if her relatives had survived.
The injured were taken by helicopter and ambulances to a Birmingham hospital.
The white van was knocked into a ditch beside the railroad tracks, with windows broken and seats and contents from inside strewn on the ground. The CSX Transportation train cars were loaded with automobiles.
CSX Corp. spokesman Gary Sease in Jacksonville, FL, said the train, with two locomotives and 38 cars, was headed to Louisville, KY, from Baldwin, FL.
NATIONAL FIRE SERVICE NEWS
A.C. High-Rise Evacuated After 2-Alarm Fire
ATLANTIC CITY, NJ: Officials said one person was injured after a two-alarm fire broke out inside an Atlantic City high-rise Wednesday night. Firefighters were called to a 20-story apartment building on N. Vermont Avenue after reports of a fire around 11:30 p.m.
Heavy smoke prompted the evacuation of the building. At least one person was injured in the blaze. Their condition is unknown. Investigators said the fire was electrical.
HOMELAND SECURITY
Bush visits Department of Homeland Security
WHITE HOUSE: President Bush makes a pitch for his anti-terror budget today with a visit to the Department of Homeland Security. The headquarters in a Naval intelligence complex is where the agency coordinates everything from the Coast Guard to the Secret Service.
Despite doubts by congressional Democrats, the White House says the president's new budget proposal for next year would boost the Homeland Security budget by eight percent.
Democrats say it's not enough. And they claim the White House reaches the eight-percent figure in part by not including what was considered emergency spending on security last year. North Carolina Democrat David Price says, at best, it's a modest increase for a critical mission that he says has yet to achieve its goals. -- Source: AP, February 08, 2007 03:01 EST
Devices could disable terror bombs
National security arm to test 'Render Safe' for local agency use
CALIFORNIA: The nation's top nuclear weapons agency announced Tuesday that it's planning to field-test devices that could eventually be used by local agencies around the country to disable a terrorist "dirty bomb" or nuclear weapon in the absence of experts trained to defuse nuclear bombs.
The plan is an answer to concerns that, in the event of a terrorist plot on U.S. soil, the Nevada-based Nuclear Emergency Search Team wouldn't be able to get to the scene of an attack soon enough. The team, known as NEST, is the first line of defense against such attacks, which federal authorities say could radioactively contaminate a 30-block section of a city.
The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration announced that "Render Safe," devices that have been years in the making, will soon be ready for field testing and eventually could be used by FBI agents, police or firefighters or other nonnuclear authorities.
The devices are covered in the agency's proposed budget for fiscal year 2008 announced Tuesday.
Citing security considerations, National Nuclear Security Administration officials refused to describe how the classified devices work. Agency acting chief Thomas D'Agostino said that it isn't clear who will receive the Render
Safe devices.
"It's not like buying fire extinguishers and handing them out," D'Agostino said. "These are open questions. But the '08 budget is set up so that (if the project is funded), we can start addressing these questions."
California officials have quietly launched their own effort to ensure that state agencies are prepared to prevent a nuclear terrorist attack.
The state Office of Homeland Security held a preparedness meeting Jan. 24 in Sacramento with about 20 representatives from the state Department of Health Services, the California Highway Patrol, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and other agencies to discuss beefing-up the state's response to a nuclear weapon or dirty bomb attack, said Homeland Security spokeswoman Elaine Jennings.
"The state of California takes seriously the radiological nuclear threats and is working very closely with (the federal) Department of Homeland Security to establish a statewide plan," Jennings said.
Using federal funds, the San Francisco Fire Department has purchased 150 radiation-detecting devices, said Assistant Deputy Fire Chief Bob Navarro, who heads the homeland security division for the Fire Department.
In the federal government's hypothetical dirty-bomb scenario, an attack using the radioactive cesium-137 isotope could contaminate a 30-block range, killing 180 people and causing 270 injuries just from the direct effects of
the blast itself, as well as creating radioactive "hot spots" around the city, Navarro said.
"What are you going to do when 70,000 people are contaminated by a radiological explosion?" Navarro asked. "How do you deal with their contaminated clothing and skin? Those are the kinds of things they're (the federal government) asking us to prepare for. This is not a joke. We take this one seriously."
EDITORIAL/OPINION/COMENTARY
U.S. advice for terror attacks is a little scary
I'll soon be visiting Son Two in Boston, where an advertising campaign for a cartoon show got out of hand and brought the terror-skittish city to its knees for a few hours last week.
I'm not worried.
I've got a handy-dandy, wallet-sized terrorism preparedness guide for media that was shipped around the country recently, compliments of the federal government and your money. It gives terrorism "basics," including the first actions we should take in the event of a specific terror attack.
Our government's advice for a nuclear bomb? "Lie on the ground and cover your head."
I'm not kidding.
Anthrax? "Contact your health provider."
Mustard gas? "Leave the affected area. Immediately remove clothing, place in a plastic bag and shower or wash. Seek medical care if exposed."
In fact, there's a lot of that call-the-doctor kind of advice, along with some general descriptions of the biological, chemical and nuclear agents we in the media might stumble across and the symptoms we might see.
(I had sort of hoped that preparedness meant we could avoid the stumbling and the symptoms.)
Nowhere on this little pocket guide - or the larger, 80-page "field guide for media" - is there anything about an electronic board with a lighted character akin to a marshmallow flipping the finger - the thing that scared Boston.
If you missed it, bunches of these goofy electronic light boards were planted randomly in some big U.S. cities, a "guerrilla" advertising campaign for something called the "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" show on the Cartoon Network.
It worked. I'd never heard of it, but I know it now. Personally, I preferred Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert's description: "clearly the Lite-Brite doodlings of terrorists."
Though the boards were up for weeks, somebody in Boston just noticed and called the bomb squad. Freeways, streets, subways and the Charles River were shut down, and, boy, were folks mad when they figured out what they really had on their hands.
Everybody looks a little foolish here, but these days the public is more forgiving of over-cautious public safety leaders than cartoon peddlers, I think.
Turner Broadcasting and its advertising agency, the appropriately named Interference Inc., delivered an apology and a promise to pay $2 million, which is cheaper than a 30-second Super Bowl ad. About half will pay public costs in chasing down this non-threat and $1 million will bolster homeland security efforts, The Boston Globe reported.
I know where they can find some extra copies of a field guide to terrorism. Or, they can just log on to www.hhs.gov/emergency for the same kind of information.
The terrorism field guide - of no use in identifying "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" - was nonetheless helpful in connecting me with Department of Health and Human Services emergency response spokesman Mark Wolfson.
He said about $150,000 was spent on developing and printing recent reference guides for the media - a 250-page book mailed earlier and 25,000 copies of the smaller field guides - all part of an emergency public information program funded by Congress.
Should a real crisis come, I hope we can pass on better information than "lie on the ground and cover your head."
-- Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Laurel Walker, Feb. 7, 2007, can be found on the internet at: http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=563333
NATIONAL DISASTER PREPAREDNESS
Broward's emergency director to resign post
BROWARD COUNTY, FL: Tony Carper, the director of Broward's Emergency Management Agency, announced this week that he is leaving his post on Feb. 23. Carper is taking a similar position with Indian River County, said spokesperson Carl Fowler. Assistant Director Lori Von Kannon will become the acting director.
Carper led Broward through Hurricane Wilma in October 2005 -- the worst hurricane to strike the county in 50 years. Broward is still recovering from Wilma. As of late January, 168 households remained in FEMA trailers.
Carper called a special staff meeting Wednesday to announce his move after about 14 years with the agency. ''We were all sorry to see that he is leaving,'' Fowler said. ``He will be missed. He provided great leadership for us.''
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