U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402–0001

77–366 PDF 2002

S. HRG. 107–255

EMERGENCY OPERATIONS PLANNING AND RESPONSE IN THE METROPOLITAN WASHINGTON

AREA

HEARING

BEFORE A

SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE

COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

SPECIAL HEARING

NOVEMBER 14, 2001—WASHINGTON, DC

Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/senate
(II)

COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS

ROBERT C. BYRD, West Virginia, Chairman

DANIEL K. INOUYE, Hawaii

ERNEST F. HOLLINGS, South Carolina

PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont

TOM HARKIN, Iowa

BARBARA A. MIKULSKI, Maryland

HARRY REID, Nevada

HERB KOHL, Wisconsin

PATTY MURRAY, Washington

BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota

DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California

RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois

TIM JOHNSON, South Dakota

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana

JACK REED, Rhode Island

TED STEVENS, Alaska

THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi

ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania

PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico

CHRISTOPHER S. BOND, Missouri

MITCH MCCONNELL, Kentucky

CONRAD BURNS, Montana

RICHARD C. SHELBY, Alabama

JUDD GREGG, New Hampshire

ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah

BEN NIGHTHORSE CAMPBELL, Colorado

LARRY CRAIG, Idaho

KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON, Texas

MIKE DEWINE, Ohio

TERRENCE E. SAUVAIN, Staff Director

CHARLES KIEFFER, Deputy Staff Director

STEVEN J. CORTESE, Minority Staff Director

LISA SUTHERLAND, Minority Deputy Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana, Chairman

RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois

JACK REED, Rhode Island

MIKE DEWINE, Ohio

KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON, Texas

Professional Staff

CHARLES KIEFFER

KATE ELTRICH

MARY DIETRICH (Minority)
(III)

CONTENTS

Page

Opening Statement of Senator Mary L. Landrieu ................................................ 1

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 3

Statement of Senator Mike DeWine ....................................................................... 4

Statement of Senator Jack Reed ............................................................................ 5

Statement of Hon. Anthony A. Williams, Mayor, District of Columbia .............. 6

Accompanied by:

Margret Nedelkoff Kellems, Deputy Mayor for Public Safety and Justice,

District of Columbia ...................................................................................... 6

Peter LaPorte, Director, Emergency Management Agency, District of Columbia ............................................................................................................ 6

Richard A. White, General Manager, Washington Metropolitan Area

Transit Authority .......................................................................................... 6

Michael Rogers, Executive Director, Metropolitan Washington Council

of Governments, District of Columbia ......................................................... 6

Ronnie Few, Chief, Department of Fire and Emergency Medical Services,

District of Columbia ...................................................................................... 6

Charles H. Ramsey, Chief, Metropolitan Police Department, District of

Columbia ........................................................................................................ 6

Dr. Ivan C. A. Walks, Director, Department of Health, District of Columbia ................................................................................................................... 6

District of Columbia Taskforce ............................................................................... 7

DC Taskforce Subcommittees ................................................................................. 7

Operational Emergency Response .......................................................................... 8

First Responders ...................................................................................................... 8

Emergency Communication Coordination ............................................................. 8

Level 3 Emergency Response .................................................................................. 9

Joint Information Center ........................................................................................ 9

Table Top Exercises ................................................................................................. 10

Emergency Preparedness Investment .................................................................... 10

Projected Revenue Losses ....................................................................................... 11

Prepared Statement of Mayor Anthony A. Williams ............................................ 12

Emergency Preparedness and Response ................................................................ 13

Short Term Investment in Emergency Preparedness ........................................... 15

Long-Term Fiscal Assistance .................................................................................. 15

Prepared Statement of Michael Rogers ................................................................. 16

The Steps COG Has Taken ..................................................................................... 18

Prepared Statement of Richard White ................................................................... 19

Request for Security Funding ................................................................................. 20

Emergency Planning in the National Capital Region .......................................... 20

Statement of Linda W. Cropp, Chairman, Council of the District of Columbia .......................................................................................................................... 21

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 24

Questions Submitted by Senator Mary L. Landrieu ............................................. 43

Questions Submitted to Mayor Anthony A. Williams ........................................... 43

Questions Submitted to Deputy Mayor Margret Kellums .................................... 45

Questions Submitted to Chief Ronnie Few ............................................................ 46

Question Submitted to Chief Charles H. Ramsey ................................................. 47

Question Submitted to Dr. Ivan C. A. Walks ........................................................ 47

(1)

EMERGENCY OPERATIONS PLANNING AND

RESPONSE IN THE METROPOLITAN WASHINGTON AREA

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2001

U.S. SENATE,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA,

COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS,

Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met at 2:35 p.m., in room SD–192, Dirksen

Senate Office Building, Hon. Mary L. Landrieu (chairman) presiding.

Present: Senators Landrieu, Reed, and Dewine.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR MARY L. LANDRIEU

Senator LANDRIEU. Good afternoon, everyone, and our subcommittee will come to order. I welcome you all to this hearing on

the District of Columbia’s emergency operations planning and the

city’s request for emergency supplemental funding in the wake of

the terrible attacks against our country on September 11.

On that day, terrorists destroyed or partially destroyed some of

the great symbols of America’s economic success and military

strength, the World Trade Center in New York City, and the Pentagon across the Potomac, without the intervention of several brave

individuals we could have, in fact, seen, according to subsequent investigations, some tragedy here in the District itself.

Since then, all Americans have vowed that these cowardly acts

will not dampen our spirit, will not shake our belief in freedom and

democracy. The safety, security, and financial strength of the District of Columbia, our Nation’s Capital, serves as a vital symbol of

this national resolve. Given its importance as a national symbol,

and as the anthrax attacks of recent weeks have shown, Washington, D.C. remains a target for terrorism.

As we all; know, D.C. is more than just a symbol. It is more than

just a cluster of Government buildings. The District of Columbia is

also a living, breathing city of over one-half million people, with the

fire and medical services department that was first on the scene at

the Pentagon, and a police department that provided security and

directed the movements of hundreds of thousands of people out of

the city, back to their homes, when the Federal Government and

other offices were closed down after the attacks.

The city’s department of health has been on the front line in responding to anthrax attacks. Mayor Williams, Deputy Mayor for

Public Safety Margret Kellems, and the heads of these departments
2

are all here today to testify. We want to thank you for your work

on behalf of the citizens of the District, the residents that are here,

and the workers that work in the District every day. You were

working on that day, and continue to work under unprecedented,

extraordinarily difficult circumstances.

I must also give a personal thanks to all of you, because my second home is D.C. My family is here. My husband and our two children live here with me. For them, and for all the families in the

District, I wanted to say thank you for your work.

The terrible attacks were a learning experience for all of us, but

especially for the District government. In the days after the attacks, local officials and media began to detail some of the shortfalls in the present emergency protocol. Specifically, articles in the

Washington Post highlighted the need for coordinated and timely

communication between Federal and local law enforcement officers,

coordinated evacuation plans for the 180,000 Federal employees

housed in the District, and the release of accurate and timely emergency information and instructions to the public.

Correcting these shortfalls cannot take place in a vacuum. There

must be coordination and emergency planning between the District

and the surrounding States and local jurisdictions in Virginia and

Maryland, as well as coordinated planning with Metro, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.

I look forward to all of our witnesses’ testimony on this issue. I

am pleased that Peter LaPorte, the Director of the District’s Emergency Management Agency is here today, along with Michael Rogers from the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, for

his testimony. I hope that he will be with us.

I anticipate the need for at least one additional hearing to examine how the District can work with surrounding communities on a

seamless emergency plan for the entire region, which I believe is

crucial for our future and the fact that this city and region will

probably, unfortunately, remain a target.

As I mentioned, the District of Columbia remains a target for potential terrorism, more so than many other cities in this country,

because of the Federal Government’s presence, because this city is

the Nation’s Capital, because of the monuments and the symbols

that are here.

Mr. Mayor, you have submitted to us a request for more than

$250 million in emergency preparedness funding. There is a wideranging and comprehensive proposal to acquire a special hazardous

material handling and detection equipment for the city’s police,

fire, and emergency medical services and public works department,

improved communication equipment and other technologies for city

agencies, as well as a comprehensive terrorist response training

team, urban search and rescue equipment, and a number of other

important items.

Some might argue that the District should already have some of

this equipment and Congress should not provide funding for such

request. Others would argue that, as the Nation’s Capital, the city

deserves and requires extra help to protect its citizens and employees from potential harm.

I understand that the District does have hazmat equipment to

handle isolated chemical spills or accidents, but it is not equipped
3

for large-scale chemical or biological attacks or the destruction of

the scale of which we saw in New York City.

With my Ranking Member, Senator DeWine, and with my committee members, particularly Senator Reed, we want to work with

you to develop a comprehensive emergency operation plan that protects the people who live, work, and visit the District of Columbia

every day, and also effectively manages Federal resources that may

become available to you for this end.

PREPARED STATEMENT

I look forward to the presentations today. Let me welcome all of

you. Let me ask my Ranking Member and Senator Reed for their

opening comments at this time, then we will have presentations

from each panel member, and then enter into a period of questions.

Thank you all very much for being here for this important hearing.

[The statement follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR MARY L. LANDRIEU

Welcome to this hearing on the District of Columbia’s emergency operations planning and the City’s request for emergency supplemental funding in the wake of the

attack against the United States on September 11, 2001. On that day, terrorists destroyed, or partially destroyed, some of the great symbols of America’s economic success and military strength: the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon, across the Potomac River in Arlington, Virginia.

Since then, Americans have vowed that these cowardly acts will not dampen our

spirit and will not shake our belief in freedom and democracy. The safety, security,

and financial strength of the District of Columbia—our Nation’s Capital—serves as

a vital symbol of this national resolve. Given its importance as a national symbol,

and as the anthrax attacks of recent weeks have shown, Washington, D.C. remains

a target for terrorism.

As we all know, Washington, D.C. is more than just a symbol. It’s more than just

government buildings. The District of Columbia is also a living, breathing city of

over half a million people with a Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department

that was first on the scene at the Pentagon and a Police Department that provided

security and directed the movement of hundreds of thousands of people out of the

City and back to their homes when the Federal Government and other offices closed

down after the attacks. The City’s Department of Health has been on the front line

in responding to the anthrax attacks.

Mayor Williams, Deputy Mayor for Public Safety, Margret Kellems, and heads of

these departments: Fire and EMS Chief Ronnie Few, Police Chief Charles Ramsey,

and Doctor Ivan Walks, Director of the District’s Department of Health all deserve

our thanks. Thank you all for being here today. You were working—and continue

to work—under unprecedented and extraordinarily difficult circumstances. I must

also give a personal thanks to all of you. D.C. is my second home. My family, my

husband and our two children, live here with me. For them, and all the families

in the District, I say thank you.

The attacks were a learning experience for all of us, but especially for the District

government. In the days after the attacks, local officials and the media began to detail some of the shortfalls in the present emergency protocol. Specifically, articles

in the Washington Post highlighted the need for coordinated and timely communications between Federal and local law enforcement officers; coordinated evacuation

plans for the 180,000 Federal employees housed in the District; and the release of

accurate and timely emergency information and instructions to the public.

Correcting these shortfalls can’t take place in a vacuum. There must be coordination in emergency planning between the District and the surrounding State and

local jurisdictions in Virginia and Maryland, as well as coordinated planning with

Metro, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. I look forward to our

witnesses’ testimony on this issue. I am pleased that Peter LaPorte, the Director

of the District’s Emergency Management Agency is here, and Michael Rogers from

the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments are available to discuss the

regional planning effort. I anticipate the need for at least one additional hearing to
4

examine how the District can work with the surrounding communities on a seamless emergency plan for the entire region.

As I mentioned, the District of Columbia remains a target for potential terrorism,

more so than many other cities in this country because of the Federal Government’s

presence. The Mayor has submitted to the Congress a request for more than $250

million in emergency preparedness funding. It is a wide-ranging and comprehensive

proposal to acquire specialized hazardous material handling and detection equipment for the City’s police, fire, EMS and public works departments; improved communications equipment and other technology for City agencies; as well as comprehensive terrorist response training, urban search and rescue equipment, and a

number of other important items.

Some might argue that the District should already have some of this equipment

and that Congress should not provide funding for the request. Others would argue

that as the Nation’s Capital, the City deserves and requires extra help to protect

its citizens from potential terrorist harm. I understand that the District does have

Hazmat equipment to handle isolated chemical spills or accidents, but it is not

equipped for a large scale chemical or biological attack or destruction on the scale

of what we saw in New York City.

My colleague Senator DeWine, the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee, and I

are committed to helping the District in this regard as it develops a comprehensive

emergency operations plan that protects the people who live, work, and visit the

District of Columbia everyday, but also effectively manages any Federal resources

that become available.

I look forward to the presentations today. Let me thank our guests, Mayor Williams, who will testify on behalf of the City, Council Chairman Linda Cropp, Michael Rogers from the Metropolitan Area Council of Governments, and the heads of

District’s key emergency response agencies for being here today.

Senator DeWine.

STATEMENT OF SENATOR MIKE DEWINE

Senator DEWINE. Senator Landrieu, thank you very much for

holding this very important hearing. This committee, under your

chairmanship, has focused on many important issues, but certainly

one of the issues that we have focused on is children, and as we

have today’s hearing and hearings in the future, as we look at the

District of Columbia’s needs in regard to preparation for potential

terrorist actions, we need to pay particular attention to the children.

There are obviously sizeable differences between adults and children, both physical and emotional differences. As we say, children

are not just small adults. They do have unique needs, which means

that in the event of additional terrorist attacks, I believe we must

be prepared to treat both adults and children and understand the

difference between the two.

Obviously, children are smaller than adults, they are lower to the

ground, which could put them in the direct path of some agents

like chlorine or sarin gas, both of which are heavier than air and

settle lower to the ground, where children would be breathing.

Children breathe faster than adults, which means they will inhale poisons and chemicals more quickly than adults. Children

often cannot swallow pills, and so we need to make sure that we

have antibiotics or other medicines that are in forms like liquids

that children can take.

Children lose body heat faster than adults, and so if a child needed a decontamination shower as a result of a chemical attack, firefighters emergency crews would need to take special precautions

for these children, such as setting up heat lamps to keep them

warm, so they do not go into shock.
5

It also means providing those children with a safe, comfortable

environment to ease their fears.

These are the kinds of things that we must take into account as

we assess the needs of our emergency response teams. That is why

today, Senators Dodd and Collins and I are introducing legislation

to help protect children from future terrorist attacks. Our bill

would make sure that those on the front lines are prepared to treat

and deal with child casualties. We need to make sure that they are

trained about the differences between adults and children and, furthermore, we need to make sure that first responders have equipment that works on children, such as smaller needles, smaller oxygen masks.

Madam Chairman, in addition to making sure that the children

in the District are protected, we are working on other efforts. I am

very pleased that in our recently passed fiscal year 2002 D.C. appropriations bill, we were able to include $16 million to provide security protection for those living and working in the District of Columbia. The September 11 Pentagon bombing clearly demonstrated

the need in the District to have that integrated emergency management system in place. This funding would pay for a coordinated

emergency plan for the District in cases of national security situations, including terrorist threats, natural disasters, or other unanticipated events.

Madam Chairman, of course, as you know, the bill also includes

funding for the local, Federal police mobile wireless interoperability

project, which would provide equipment to facilitate direct communication between the D.C. Metropolitan Police, U.S. Secret Service,

U.S. Park Police, and U.S. Capitol Police.

In the next few weeks, we will be considering an emergency supplemental appropriations bill that will provide additional funds so

that we may continue to recover, rebuild, and reassess our Nation’s

ability to respond to future terrorist attacks.

I want to thank our panel for being here. We are involved, of

course, in providing some funds for the District of Columbia, but

you are the ones who are on the front line every day. You are the

ones who make a difference. You are the ones who have to make

the very, very tough and critical decisions, so we thank you for

being here. We have a great deal of respect for you, and we look

forward to hearing your testimony.

Senator LANDRIEU. Thank you, Senator DeWine, for that excellent statement, and I so appreciate your comments about helping

us to be more sensitive as we design programs to make sure they

are designed well for adults and for children, meeting all their special needs, as you so beautifully outlined.

Senator Reed.

STATEMENT OF SENATOR JACK REED

Senator REED. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman. Let me

also commend you for holding this hearing, and commend the

Mayor and his colleagues for their valiant efforts over the last several weeks. I suspect they knew a great deal about emergencies on

September 10. They know quite a bit more now, not only the attack

on the Pentagon, but the anthrax assault here in Washington.
6

I think it is critical that we participate fully with you as you reevaluate your plans, refocus your attentions, and redirect resources

so that the District of Columbia is prepared for any eventuality

going forward and frankly, after September 11 and the anthrax attacks, what we thought was unthinkable, sadly is more and more

routine. It is important that we coordinate not only with you, but

that you coordinate with your neighboring communities, and I

know you are doing that.

I hope through the series of hearings that the chairwoman has

outlined, that we can not only sense what you need, but give you

the resources to do the job. I had an opportunity to sit down with

my colleagues in Rhode Island, the Governor, Lieutenant Governor,

all of the emergency management people in Rhode Island. They

have a good plan, but they have to exercise the plan, and they need

a lot of money to provide the resources and the training to be effective responders. I would be surprised if you were not in the same

position.

But thank you very much, Mayor, and all of you, for your great

work and effort.

Thank you, Madam Chairman.

Senator LANDRIEU. Thank you. Mr. Mayor, for your opening remarks, and Ms. Cropp, and then we will take questions and answers.

STATEMENT OF HON. ANTHONY A. WILLIAMS, MAYOR, DISTRICT OF

COLUMBIA

ACCOMPANIED BY:

MARGRET NEDELKOFF KELLEMS, DEPUTY MAYOR FOR PUBLIC

SAFETY AND JUSTICE, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

PETER LaPORTE, DIRECTOR, EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY,

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

RICHARD A. WHITE, GENERAL MANAGER, WASHINGTON METROPOLITAN AREA TRANSIT AUTHORITY

MICHAEL ROGERS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, METROPOLITAN WASHINGTON COUNCIL OF GOVERNMENTS, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

RONNIE FEW, CHIEF, DEPARTMENT OF FIRE AND EMERGENCY

MEDICAL SERVICES, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

CHARLES H. RAMSEY, CHIEF, METROPOLITAN POLICE DEPARTMENT, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

DR. IVAN C. A. WALKS, DIRECTOR, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

Mr. WILLIAMS. I want to thank you, Chairwoman Landrieu and

Ranking Member DeWine, and Senator Reed, for your interest in

this important topic and for calling this important hearing to talk

about our overall emergency preparedness plans. We are grateful

to all of you that you acknowledge that it is the local jurisdiction

in this case, most immediately the Nation’s Capital, that must perform the role as first responder in an emergency incident. As residents and visitors of our city, we have a responsibility to protect

you and your families, and I welcome the opportunity to discuss

three important concerns to you.

First, I want to assure you that we have an emergency response

plan that works and integrates all local, regional, and Federal partners.
7

Second, we want to request your assistance in the short term to

enhance our emergency preparedness infrastructure.

And third, we request your support for the long haul, because as

long as our Nation is at war our Nation’s Capital and, I dare say,

our other local jurisdictions will be at risk.

Now, we must manage that risk. We can overcome that risk, but

at risk we will be, both physically and financially.

Now, I have submitted my full testimony for the record, and I

would like to use my time with you this afternoon to discuss in detail our emergency preparedness planning, but before I do so, I

think we cannot talk about emergency preparedness without once

again acknowledging the heroism of the emergency responders in

New York City and here in our area, who on September 11 I think

showed us what public duty and honor is about and, as Mayor of

our Nation’s Capital, I want everyone to know that our thoughts

and our prayers are with the people of New York, are with the people of Virginia and, most importantly, with their loved ones.

Like all Americans, the leadership of the District never anticipated the evil of using a passenger airliner as a weapon of mass

destruction, or using the U.S. mail as a conduit for terror. For us,

like most Americans, the cowardice of the recent terrorism attacks

galvanized our resolve to outthink, outsmart, and outplan any terrorism that targets the District of Columbia.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA TASKFORCE

Immediately following September 11, I convened a task force of

senior District officials to review and improve the District’s emergency operations plan. This task force is updating and enhancing

the District’s responsiveness plan that describes the roles and responsibilities of District agencies for the overall delivery of disaster

assistance, as well as their relationships with Federal agencies that

may support them should the situation warrant Federal assistance.

Our response plan also coordinates response and recovery activities with volunteer agencies active in disasters, area neighborhood

community groups, and the business community.

DC TASKFORCE SUBCOMMITTEES

As you know, there already exists a comprehensive Federal response plan. As a part of its work, my task force established subcommittees in each of the critical emergency support functions to

mirror the Federal response plan. These emergency support functions include a transportation group to review current evacuation

plans, a communications group tasked with planning and implementing the District’s emergency communications needs, a law enforcement group tasked with ensuring the public order being maintained during a crisis, and a command and control group to oversee

and coordinate all operational response.

To ensure cross-jurisdictional coordination and effective resourcesharing, these subcommittees include representatives from all of

the relevant Federal agencies, as well as—I emphasize this—officials from the surrounding jurisdictions in Maryland and Virginia.

We are particularly grateful for the leadership provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which has brought the re-
8

sources and representation of the National Capital Region Response Team to the work of the District’s task force.

In addition, we are working closely with private sector organizations that are vital to our ability to respond in an emergency, including the American Red Cross and the Washington Area Hospital

Association, and Dr. Walks in the question and answer period can

talk about the role that our hospitals have played, working with us

in a network, in the recent anthrax situation here in the District.

OPERATIONAL EMERGENCY RESPONSE

The District response plan is always operative, and I emphasize

that. It is always operative. It does not need to be activated. There

is a contingency plan that merely needs to be implemented as required by the nature of the situation. This ensures that no matter

when the incident occurs, or how serious the emergency is, appropriate response actions are immediately, instantaneously put into

action. This means that there is no question of the appropriate response, and no confusion about what each of the many first responders should expect from their emergency response partners.

This is a core of an effective response plan.

FIRST RESPONDERS

Now, should disaster strike tomorrow, God forbid, two things

happen immediately and concurrently. One, appropriate first responders, police, fire, emergency medical services or health care

professionals are deployed to the scene to begin initial response

and containment activities. Simultaneously, notification protocols

are set into motion. My senior administration team and I are notified of the facts as they come in through any one of numerous redundant voice and data communications technologies. These systems are currently in place. Decisionmaking begins immediately,

even as our first responders race to the scene.

EMERGENCY COMMUNICATION COORDINATION

The District’s emergency plan identifies the appropriate emergency support function leader for each type of emergency. In an

emergency, each emergency support function leader is notified, as

are a number of independent and nongovernmental agencies and

organizations, including the D.C. public schools, the utilities companies, surrounding jurisdictions, emergency management agencies, and selected individuals in the Federal Government. The plan

also identifies liaison personnel who are deployed to field command

posts and Federal command centers as appropriate to facilitate effective communications, and I think this committee is right to emphasize the need for communication and coordination, and we certainly see the need for it. There is no way that we can defend adequately, let alone satisfactorily or optimally our Nation’s Capital,

unless we have that coordination.

As I have mentioned many, many times, Madam Chair, you compare Rudy Giuliani’s doing a brilliant job in New York City, but he

has got 40,000 New York City’s police officers working for him. We

have a huge center of activity here, and potential targets here. I

have approximately 4,000 officers, they are great officers, and I
9

have great fire personnel, but there is no way we can meet the

challenge unless we coordinate and communicate.

Now, based on early information and assessment, I will make the

decision as to the readiness level of the city. In addition, in normal

operations there are three levels of readiness that we have patterned on the Federal levels, with level 3 being the most extreme

crisis situation. This mirrors the Federal Government.

LEVEL 3 EMERGENCY RESPONSE

During a level 3 emergency, I would activate the city’s emergency

operations center, or EOC. Under my leadership the District’s

emergency management team, which is primarily my agency directors, would assemble at the emergency operations center to manage

the incident. We believe that in a Level 3 situation we would also

secure other key decisionmakers in the District for command and

control purposes and for line of succession purposes. For example,

the Council Chair and the Mayor would not be necessarily in the

same place, and I am sure you can understand the reason for that.

JOINT INFORMATION CENTER

The emergency operations center becomes a clearinghouse for

critical operational information, and all requests for support resources being brokered through the EOC. In addition, the plan includes the establishment of a joint information center at the EOC

that will manage all public communications during an incident.

The EOC structure parallels that of both FEMA regional operations center, and the headquarters FEMA interagency emergency

support team, allowing clear paths of communications between responders at the local, regional, and Federal level as well as with

the general public.

Each emergency support function is responsible for executing

specific tasks that are detailed by the District response plan. The

emergency support function leader on duty in the EOC coordinates

information to and from the field, ensuring that decisionmakers

and managers in the EOC have instant and accurate information.

This structure in the EOC allows us to quickly determine the

best staging area for each activity, and how to move people in

emergency equipment in and out of town. Emergency evacuation

and access routes are identified and incorporated in the District’s

response plan.

The response plan identifies and evaluates the resources available at each potential staging area, as well as the requirements

needed for each emergency support function, so, for example, the

plan identifies which public schools have generators in the event of

power loss, or where there are large parking areas that can serve

as a biohazard decontamination center. We now have the mapping

capability to prioritize and select the appropriate staging area for

each function, as well as identify the access routes to and from

these areas.

The District’s emergency plan anticipates that during a Level 3

emergency it may be necessary to declare a formal state of emergency, as authorized in the D.C. Code. In that circumstance, I

would make a declaration of emergency, defining which authorities
10

granted to me by law I would invoke to maintain order and safety

in the city.

If necessary, I would also request a presidential declaration of

emergency or major disaster, and the implementation of the Federal response plan, the effect of which would be to make Federal

support and assistance available through FEMA. This eliminates

layers of bureaucracy and accelerates a Federal response.

A small example of that happening actually happened this summer, when we had floods in the Bloomingdale section of our city.

We moved very, very quickly to the scene. We requested of the

President a presidential declaration of disaster, and I am pleased

to say the Bush administration responded within hours of our request, and help was on the way to people in record time.

TABLE TOP EXERCISES

We will exercise our plans and procedures until we are comfortable that we can execute our roles and responsibilities without

hesitation. Last week, we took our emergency response plan for a

test drive, if you will, during a table top exercise, and as in any

test drive we found a lot of bugs in the car. We tested our notification procedure, evaluated early communications and decisionmaking during various emergency levels, and assessed our overall

readiness levels. We are now making adjustments and further refinements, and we will test it over again shortly, and we will continue to test it until we have it to our level of satisfaction. We are

encouraged that FEMA has agreed to participate in our next table

top exercise, and we are extending the invitation to participate in

these exercises to our neighboring jurisdictions.

EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS INVESTMENT

If I could, just for one final moment, talk about our investment

in emergency preparedness, because while we work toward even

better response and planning for a cataclysmic event, the day-today operations of our response activities are taking a toll on our

city. In fact, the District incurs unbudgeted costs which may have

an impact on our service delivery in the future. That is why we

have included $250 million for emergency preparedness in our $1

billion request for special appropriations.

This request includes investment in protecting clothing, breathing apparatus, and specialized protection equipment for our first

responders, police officers, fire emergency, medical and public

health personnel in a chemical or biological emergency, heavy

equipment such as urban search and rescue tools, a mobile laboratory for detecting chemical and biological risks, and containment

units at local hospitals, specialized training for police, fire, and

public health personnel, and finally, the technological and communications infrastructure to support front line emergency response

communications.

Each of these investments in my estimation are critical to protect

the personnel that we depend on in an emergency, and to better

serve the people who live and work in the District of Columbia. I

want to emphasize to the committee, this is not a wish list, and I

am sure this committee as appropriators have seen a lot of wish

lists. I would argue to you in all sincerity, this is not your usual
11

wish list, because without the full funding, you place me as Mayor,

and you place our Council Chair in a very, very difficult position

as hosts of a nightmare game show.

Behind door number one is the ability to handle a bioterrorism

threat such as anthrax. Behind door number two is the ability to

conduct urban search and rescue should one of our major Federal

centers be a target and sustain massive damage, and behind door

number three is the ability to fight a fire of the magnitude of Monday’s disaster in the Rockaways in New York City, and we are

forced to pick one. This is not a choice any of us wish to make, and

I ask you, if you were mayor, how would you decide to pick one of

these doors? It is an impossible task.

Meeting the challenges of today’s reality is not going to be fast,

it is not going to be easy, and it is not going to be without cost.

With your support, I am committed to seeing that our city meets

and exceeds the newly created national standards for emergency

management and business continuity programs that are endorsed

by FEMA, the National Emergency Management Association, and

the International Association of Emergency Management.

PROJECTED REVENUE LOSSES

Finally, the loss of revenue to the District since September 11 is

staggering. We are projecting a $750 million hit to our economy, resulting in a loss of about $200 million in tax receipts. The economic

impact felt here in the District has rippled throughout the regional

economy, and I want to assure you that in the District we are

closely monitoring our budget. We will not overspend the budget,

not on my watch, and not on the watch of our District leadership,

but it is a cause for concern.

The District’s economy will continue to be vulnerable as long as

we must provide services to a city that serves 2 million people each

day with a tax base of only 572,000 residents for support. This vulnerability is exacerbated by the fact that while our country is at

war, our economic base, tourism, is threatened.

Now, in my written testimony I have outlined three viable options that would begin to address the structural imbalance in the

District’s budget, and I have talked to this committee about this in

the past. As I have in previous testimony, I will again today ask

the Congress to give them serious consideration, because the District really should have the ability to compete on a level playing

field, and compete it must, compete we are prepared to do, but we

cannot compete effectively if half of our assets are tied up and offline.

In closing, let me reiterate, we must stand united to make certain that our Nation’s Capital is safe and open for business. We

have developed an effective emergency plan that seamlessly

meshes the resources of the District, Federal emergency agencies,

independent partners, and the surrounding jurisdictions. We need

your short-term support to raise our emergency response capability, and your long-term financial assistance so that our city may

weather any crisis that may come.
12

PREPARED STATEMENTS

I want to thank you for the opportunity to testify to the committee. I want to thank the committee for its partnership with the

District, and most immediately thank the committee for its concern

for a very, very important topic in all of our lives and the way we

do business.

[The statements follow:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MAYOR ANTHONY A. WILLIAMS

Good afternoon Chairwoman Landrieu, Ranking Member DeWine, and members

of the Committee. Thank you for calling this important hearing to discuss the District of Columbia’s overall emergency preparedness plans. I welcome the opportunity

to discuss three important concerns. First, I want to assure you that we have an

emergency response plan that works and integrates all local, regional, and Federal

partners. Second, I request your assistance in the short term to enhance our emergency preparedness infrastructure. And third, I also request your support for the

long haul, because as long as the Nation is at war, the Nation’s Capital will be at

risk—both physically and financially.

The President has warned that the war against terrorism may not be short and

will not be easy. Your assistance in strengthening our immediate emergency preparedness capabilities will help ensure that this city, the Nation’s Capital, maintains the highest state of emergency preparedness in the country for the foreseeable

future.

Being Mayor of the Nation’s Capital means making sure that hometown Washington works—picking up the garbage, keeping the streets safe, attracting new businesses and jobs and, of course, doing all of that within the available financial resources. But since September 11, this city has become a vastly different place, and

the responsibility of this municipal government to respond to the most extraordinary threats and attacks has grown exponentially.

As Mayor, I am now trying to calm the fears of the public in light of the recent

bio-terrorist attacks—reassuring our 572,000 residents, the hundreds of thousands

of people who work here everyday, and the millions who come to visit from across

the Nation and from around the globe—that Washington is a safe place to be. The

District’s Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department is now responding to

20 or 30 times the number of calls for suspicious packages and other hazardous material concerns throughout the city and at the White House, Congress, the Supreme

Court, and all Federal agencies. The District’s Department of Health has become a

first responder and service provider to tens of thousands of postal workers and mail

handlers in the city so that the mail can continue to flow to District residents, local

businesses, and the Federal Government. The Metropolitan Police Department, in

a heightened state of alert since September 11, has a whole host of expanded responsibilities, responding to hundreds of suspicious packages, suspicious people, and

bomb threats, and providing additional officers to support the Federal law enforcement agencies protecting the Federal holdings in the city. All of these activities

must be integrated with and balanced against the rights of the citizens to have sufficient police presence to protect their neighborhoods and control crime in our

streets.

All of the agencies in my Administration have accepted their responsibilities to

our Nation’s Capital with honor and have performed with courage, skill, and care.

We stand united to ensure that Washington, D.C. continues to be a safe and exciting

place to live, visit, and do business.

As you well know, the District has successfully rebounded from a financial crisis.

Congress has been supportive throughout our financial recovery. With your help,

and the support of the recently retired Financial Authority, the District has

achieved financial stability. However, because of severe financial limitations placed

on the District because it is the Capital, the city operates on a very small margin

with revenues staying just ahead of expenditures. Between the decrease in revenue

caused by the recent loss of tourism and the increased demands on public safety

and public health services, the terrorist attacks have put enormous financial pressure on the District. I am confident that the strong relationship that we have built

between the city and Congress during the financial recovery will enable us to work

as partners to meet the challenges ahead.
13

EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS AND RESPONSE

Like most Americans, the leadership of the District never anticipated the evil of

using a passenger airliner as a weapon of mass destruction and the U.S. mail as

a conduit of terror. For us, like most Americans, the cowardice of the terrorist attacks that began on September 11 galvanized our resolve to out-think, out-smart,

and out-plan any terrorist that targets the District of Columbia.

Immediately following September 11, I convened a Task Force of senior District

officials to review and improve the District’s existing Emergency Operations Plan.

I gave the Task Force two primary imperatives:

—Immediately enhance critical linkages and operational relationships with our

Federal, State and regional partners; and

— Develop a comprehensive emergency management program capability robust

enough to respond to any incident.

As you know, there already exists a comprehensive Federal Response Plan. My

Task Force established subcommittees in each of the critical Emergency Support

Functions (ESFs) to mirror the Federal Response Plan, including: a transportation

group to review current evacuations plans; a communications group tasked with

planning and implementing the District’s emergency communications needs; a law

enforcement group tasked with ensuring that public order is maintained during a

crisis; and a command and control group to oversee and coordinate all operational

response.

To ensure cross-jurisdictional coordination and effective resource sharing, these

subcommittees include representatives from all of the relevant Federal agencies, as

well as officials from the surrounding jurisdictions in Maryland and Virginia. We

are particularly grateful for the leadership provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which has brought the resources and representation of the

National Capitol Region Response Team to the work of the District’s Task Force.

The National Capitol Region Response Team includes FEMA, the Environmental

Protection Agency, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the U.S.

Army Corps of Engineers, among many others.

In addition, we are working closely with private sector organizations that are vital

to our ability to respond in an emergency, including the American Red Cross and

the Washington Area Hospital Association.

This Task Force is updating and enhancing the District’s Response Plan that describes the roles and responsibilities of the District agencies for the overall delivery

of District disaster assistance, as well as their relationships with Federal agencies

that may support them should the situation warrant Federal assistance.

The D.C. Response Plan also coordinates response and recovery activities with

volunteer agencies active in disasters, area neighborhood community groups, and

the business community. The D.C. Response Plan is always operative. It does not

need to be ‘‘activated’’ per se; it is a contingency plan that merely needs to be implemented as required by the nature of the situation. This ensures that no matter

when an incident occurs, and what type of incident it may be, appropriate response

actions are immediately put into motion—there is no question over the manner in

which to respond, no confusion about what each of the first responders should expect from their emergency response partners. This is the core of an effective response plan.

Should disaster strike tomorrow, God forbid—any incident from a water main

break to a bioterrorism attack—two things happen immediately and concurrently.

One, appropriate first responders—police, fire, EMS, or health professionals—are

deployed to the scene to begin initial response and containment activities, as necessary. Simultaneously, notification protocols are set into motion. My senior Administration team and I are notified of the preliminary facts as they come in. Notification is received through any one of numerous redundant voice and data communications technologies that are now in place. Decision-making begins immediately, even

as additional information and confirmations come in from the first responders on

the scene.

Based on early information and assessment, I will make the decision as to what

level of readiness the city should be in. In addition to normal operations, there are

three levels of readiness, the highest of which is Level III, mirroring the Federal

readiness levels. In a Level III emergency—the most extreme crisis situation—I activate the city’s Emergency Operations Center, or EOC. Together with my senior

management team, I go to the EOC to manage the incident.

In a Level III emergency, the agency heads leading each Emergency Support

Function (ESF) are notified, as are a number of independent and non-governmental

agencies and organizations including the D.C. Public Schools, the utilities, the surrounding jurisdictions emergency management agencies, and selected individuals in
14

the Federal Government. Appropriate representatives have been identified for the

various types of emergencies, and those individuals would report to the EOC where

all emergency operations are coordinated. The plan also identifies liaison personnel

who are deployed to field command posts and Federal command centers, as appropriate, to facilitate effective communications.

The EOC is the clearinghouse of critical operational information and all requests

for support resources are brokered through the EOC. The EOC structure parallels

that of both the FEMA Regional Operations Center and the Headquarters FEMA

Interagency Emergency Support Team, allowing clear paths of communication between responders at the local, regional, and Federal level.

Each ESF leader is responsible for executing the tasks that come to them, all of

which are defined by the District Response Plan. Each ESF leader in the EOC sends

information to first responders in the field. These ESF leaders also gather information from those in the field to ensure that the decision-makers and managers in the

EOC have instant and accurate information.

From the EOC, we will determine where all activities will be staged and how we

will move people and emergency equipment in and out of town on emergency evacuation and access routes. Since September 11, we have identified all available staging

areas, their physical attributes, for example, generators at certain public schools,

and the requirements of the various ESF operations, such as the need for large

parking areas, independent power supplies, and square footage. We now have a dynamic mapping capability that will allow the Incident Management Team in the

EOC to prioritize and select staging areas for the various ESF operations and access

routes between those areas and the incident scene.

One important Emergency Support Function is Public Affairs function that will

be operated out of the EOC during a Level III emergency. The Public Affairs ESF

is the communications hub for getting information out to the public. Since September 11, we have built the operational framework for a Joint Information Center,

at the EOC that will manage all public communications during an incident.

It may be necessary during a Level III emergency to declare a State of Emergency

as authorized by D.C. Code. In that circumstance, I would make a declaration of

emergency, defining which authorities granted to me by law I would invoke to maintain order in the city. If necessary, I would also request a Presidential Declaration

of Emergency or Major Disaster and the implementation of the Federal Response

Plan, the effect of which would be to make Federal support and assistance available

through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). This eliminates layers of bureaucracy and accelerates the Federal response.

For example, once a Presidential declaration has been made, the District Department of Public Works, which is the Emergency Support Function leader for public

works and engineering, can request Federal assistance from FEMA for debris removal, emergency water supplies or emergency power generation. My director of

Public Works has been meeting for several weeks with representatives of the Army

Corps of Engineers and FEMA to ensure that emergency plans are in place should

a Presidential declaration be made.

Similarly, my primary agencies for other emergency support functions are building the same type of relationships with their Federal partners to ensure seamless

operations in each functional area. The District Division of Transportation has met

with the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Departments of Transportation

for Virginia and Maryland to build interoperability in the transportation function.

For all of these relationships to work effectively, we must test our plans and exercise our operational responses. On Thursday of last week I participated in a tabletop

exercise with my key agency heads. We reviewed our notification procedures, discussed early communications and decision-making in an emergency operating environment and assessed our readiness levels. As a result we are making adjustments

and further enhancements. We will have another tabletop next week and another

following that one. We will exercise our plans and procedures until I am comfortable

that we can execute our roles and responsibilities without hesitation. FEMA has

agreed to participate in our tabletop exercises and we are extending the invitation

to our neighboring jurisdictions as the scenarios warrant.

If we are to be successful in safeguarding the Capital, it will require effective communications between the Federal Government and the District. Two weeks ago I

had a productive meeting with Governor Ridge who is personally committed to

working with me towards additional improvements in District-Federal cooperation.

Since then, staff from Governor Ridge’s office have met with my senior staff as well.
15

SHORT TERM INVESTMENT IN EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS

While we work towards even better response and planning for a cataclysmic

event, the day to day operations of our response activities are taking a toll. Over

the past two weeks, our Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department have responded to between 30 and 70 hazardous material (hazmat) calls per day. The Metropolitan Police Department has been on a heightened state of alert since September 11—which has meant greater numbers of officers deployed, using more overtime dollars. In fact, we estimate that the additional personnel costs alone for police

for the six months subsequent to September 11 will be more than $6 million and

more than $5 million for Fire EMS.

I am here today to tell you that the men and women of the District’s public safety

and public health agencies are doing what needs to be done, but we are depleting

our resources, and it is creating problems for the normal operations of hometown

Washington, D.C. I have instructed the Fire EMS Chief to do what is necessary to

respond to 30–70 hazmat calls per day, but we are running our hazmat units on

unbudgeted overtime dollars. If we must sustain the current operational tempo over

the long haul, we are determined to develop flexibility and depth far beyond what

anyone has done before because of the unique responsibilities of this city as home

to the Federal Government.

That is why we have included $250 million for emergency preparedness in our $1 billion request for special appropriations. This $250 million request includes investments in:

—Protective clothing, breathing apparatus, and specialized detection equipment

for our police officers, fire/emergency medical and public health personnel who

will be first responders in a chemical or biological emergency;

—Heavy equipment such as urban search and rescue tools, a mobile laboratory

for testing and detecting chemical and biological risks and containment units

at local hospitals;

—Specialized training for police, fire/EMS and public health personnel; and

—Technological and communications infrastructure to support front line emergency response communications.

In addition to investing in the personnel that we depend upon in an emergency,

this request will allow us to better serve the people who live and work in the District of Columbia. But this is not going to be fast; it is not going to be easy; and

it is not going to be without cost. Together with our regional and Federal partners,

and with the support of Congress, I am committed to seeing that our city meets—

and exceeds—the newly created national standards for emergency management and

business continuity programs endorsed by FEMA, the National Emergency Management Association, and the International Association of Emergency Management.

This investment in the District’s emergency response capability will help

strengthen our preparedness to levels the American people should expect. Our Nation’s Capital will always be a ‘‘higher risk environment’’ than most cities, and responding to a major emergency requires coordination and cooperation among all the

local jurisdictions.

LONG-TERM FISCAL ASSISTANCE

As we have seen so clearly over the past two months, when terrorist attacks close

down the U.S. Capitol, shut down Reagan National Airport, and spread fear of biological warfare, many Americans are afraid to come to their Nation’s Capital. The

loss of revenue to the District since September 11 is staggering—we are projecting

a $750 million hit to our economy, resulting in a loss of about $200 million in tax

receipts. The economic impact felt here in the District has rippled throughout the

regional economy. From what I understand both Maryland and Virginia are projecting significantly lower revenues as a direct result of September 11, and local

governments in the surrounding jurisdictions have frozen spending and have imposed hiring freezes. In the District we are closely monitoring our budget . . . We

will not go into deficit spending on my watch!

I am deeply proud of the fact that the city has successfully rebounded from fiscal

straits and emerged from a control period within four short years, while vastly improving the quality of services we provide to our residents. But the District’s fiscal

stability and growth may be vulnerable due to pressures generated by a weakened

tourism industry combined with economic and national uncertainty. I fear that we

continue to operate at one emergency away from financial difficulties. This will not

be resolved until we address the core problem—congressionally imposed restrictions

on our tax base. I strongly believe that the District’s economy will continue to be

vulnerable as long as we must provide services to a city that serves millions of people each day with a tax base of only 572,000 residents for support. This vulner-
16

ability is only exacerbated by the fact that while the country is at war our economic

base, tourism, is threatened.

From the Federal Government, these restrictions represent a reasonable exercise

of prerogative in the Nation’s Capital. For the District, however, these restrictions

prevent the collection of fair compensation for services rendered—compensation that

proves critically necessary for investing in infrastructure and service improvements,

and maintaining a structurally balanced budget. For every dollar earned in the District, over 60 cents goes to the surrounding jurisdictions, 60 cents that cannot be

taxed to reimburse the District for maintaining the city’s infrastructure and services.

Congress should compensate the District for these restrictions. Without an equitable compensation, the District’s long-term financial stability is at jeopardy. There

are several viable options I ask Congress to seriously consider:

Congresswoman Norton has presented the District of Columbia Non-Resident Tax

Credit Act. This would allow the District to tax income of non-residents, then offset

these taxes with a Federal credit. In its anticipated form, this proposal would yield

approximately $400 million in fiscal year 2003. The advantage of this proposal is

that it affords the District, like States across the country, the opportunity to tax

local income at its source, without unduly harming the residents of Maryland and

Virginia.

Another option requires that the Federal Government provide a 2 percent credit

to the District government on Federal taxes paid by District residents. This amount,

approximately $500 million in fiscal year 2003, would compensate the District for

Federal restrictions while providing funds to provide critical services.

A third option envisions that the Federal Government establishes a Municipal Reimbursement Fund on behalf of the District to support critical needs.

Regardless of the compensation mechanism selected, the District would focus substantial resources on infrastructure needs related to transportation, information

technology, capital construction, and renovation. Through these options, or some appropriate alternative, the Federal Government should provide compensation for restrictions that have resulted in the structural imbalance of the District’s budget.

In closing, let me reiterate: We must stand united in conveying that the city is

safe and open for business. The Nation looks to Washington to define normal in this

new reality; to that end we have an effective emergency plan, but we need your

short term support to enhance our emergency infrastructure and your long term fiscal assistance so that the city may weather any crisis that may come.

I thank you for this opportunity to testify, and I look forward to our ongoing discussions about protecting our beloved city and the Nation’s Capital and long term

and short term Federal assistance to the District. I will now be happy to answer

any questions you may have.

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MICHAEL ROGERS

Good Morning Senator Landrieu and Members of the Subcommittee. I’m pleased

to be here today to discuss emergency preparedness for the Washington region and

what the Council of Governments is doing to make sure those plans are effective

and complete.

As you know, the Council of Governments, or COG, is the association of 17 major

cities and counties in the Washington metropolitan area. COG provides a forum for

regional cooperation. At COG, elected officials work together to find solutions to our

shared challenges, and then continue to work together to implement those solutions.

This organization also serves its members by acting as a think tank for local governments and a regional information source on the environment, transportation and

human services.

COG represents a partnership that provides solid research, planning and leadership, and can ensure that this region speaks with one voice. As we confront the

aftermath of the September 11 tragedy, I believe there has been no other time in

COG’s 44-year history when those services have been more valuable to the region.

In recent weeks, COG has brought together the emergency management and public safety officials from our member governments, State and Federal officials, and

local health organizations. Our purpose has been to coordinate the work that is

being done by each of these entities into an effective and complete regional plan of

action to be used in the event of major emergencies.

COG continues to do what we do best—serve as a forum for interested parties to

come together to discuss and plan for a specific emergency. We can do this because

of COG’s committee support structure that provides a place and mechanism for public safety officials to come together to address common needs and responses.
17

In addition to the committee structure, the concept of a forum has been extended

to COG serving as moderator of regional conference calls of public officials getting

together to discuss event-related topics, such as government and school openings

and closings, need for information hotlines, mutual aid, etc.

COG facilities also are available for emergency meetings at the time of a disaster,

such as those held during the Cryptosporidium scare in December 1993 and recent

meetings regarding the re-opening of National Airport. If called upon 1COG can and

did serve as the location for a hotline, with the attendant call takers, to give information to the public regarding the nature of the emergency.

To give the local governments the tools that they need to manage an incident,

COG has developed agreements, plans, and communication systems to aid them.

Basic to contingency planning are the police and fire mutual aid agreements developed in the early 1970’s. When one jurisdiction has an emergency and has committed or foresees that it will commit all of its resources, it can request aid from

its neighbors. This was ably demonstrated at the Pentagon on September 11 and

continues as the FBI takes over the investigation at the disaster site. Work remains

to be done at COG that would allow mutual aid to be used in a non-emergency, predeployment situation, such as the now canceled IMF/World Bank meeting.

After the Air Florida Crash, COG took advantage of lessons learned and greatly

improved the mutual aid operational plan called for in the police and fire mutual

aid agreements. Using the Incident Command System as a basis, the operational

plan spelled out how mutual aid would be provided to ensure that only legitimate

aid was provided. The principles of incident command—with a single incident commander in charge and assisted by supporting staff—is being taught to responders

at all levels of government.

The question has been asked if COG has a terrorism plan. The short answer is

no. The mutual aid operational plan developed after Air Florida is an all hazards

plan. At the regional level, the planning principles contained in the Incident Command System are applicable to a whole host of contingencies, from a simple car

crash to an aircraft accident. Specific planning remains the responsibility of the

local and State Governments. Disaster response in this country flows from city or

county to State and then to the national level. A regional organization such as COG

is an anomaly in the process and thus is limited in what it can do. We help where

our local governments perceive a role for COG.

One such role for COG has been to develop the communications systems needed

to talk to each other and to the public. A variety of systems exist. Police, fire, and

DC hospitals have Mutual Aid Radio Systems that are tested daily and used with

some regularity and most definitely on September 11. In the planning stage are systems such as CapWin and PSWN, both are intended to provide communications

interoperability in this region. We are getting close to when every public safety and

transportation entity will be able to talk to each other at the scene of an incident—

a condition that didn’t exist at the time of the Suicide Jumper on the Woodrow Wilson Bridge in November 1998.

The quickest way for local, State and Federal Government agencies to disseminate

information is by use of the Washington Area Warning System—a landline phone

system known as WAWAS. WAWAS is a special circuit of the National Alert Warning System (NAWAS). FEMA has given this capability to the Washington area because the seat of government is here in Washington and as such, is very vulnerable

to attack—nuclear in the past—terrorism in the present. Mostly this system is used

by the National Weather Service for weather warnings. This system was used extensively in the recent disaster.

Whereas WAWAS is for inter-governmental communications, the Emergency Alert

System (EAS), formerly known as the Emergency Broadcast System (EBS), is for

communicating with the public. A public official with a message for the public can

interrupt radio and TV broadcasting in the metropolitan region by arranging with

their emergency management agency to contact the primary EAS stations in the

area, WTOP and WMAL. Through a daisy chain arrangement, stations all over the

region will transmit the official’s message to the listening and viewing public. This

system was not used at any level of government on September 11.

As you can see COG’s role in an emergency is fairly limited but effective where

we are involved. In the September 11th incident at the Pentagon, city and county

administrators and school officials talked in four COG-arranged conference calls to

decide government and school openings or closings. For future events, a recommendation was made for emergency management officials to confer on a regular

basis by conference call rather than rely solely on the Washington Area Warning

System.

My final point is that COG provides a ready-made forum for investigating and

solving the region’s disaster preparedness needs. As such, the Federal Government
18

is favorably inclined to deal with a single entity rather than 17 individual governments. This was the case with the Snow Plan, the Metropolitan Medical Strike

Team and the recently completed Planning Guidance for the Health System Response to a Bioevent in the National Capital Region COG through the Bio- terrorism

Task Force developed the planning factors and the guidance was passed on to the

individual jurisdictions for implementation.

The COG Board and Chief Administrative Officers Committee have both held extensive briefings on lessons learned from September 11 and have begun to outline

follow up plans for COG so that we may improve regional coordination and communication in the future. Areas of focus include:

—Developing a real-time communication capability to gather information and coordinate decision-making.

—Improving communication equipment and system interoperability.

—Exploring guidelines for use by public and private employers, including schools

for any closure or early dismissal decisions.

—Accelerating COG’s efforts to revise mutual aid agreements to allow for pre-deployment in non- emergency situations of mutual aid.

—Identify the essential outcomes of various local, State and Federal agency after

action efforts, and organize a regional effort to strengthen our region’s overall

emergency preparedness and response capabilities.

In each of these areas, COG anticipates working closely with key local, State and

Federal emergency management and public safety agencies to ensure that our regional efforts are carefully coordinated with all relevant stakeholders.

This morning I would like to outline the major steps COG has taken, and discuss

how we plan to address the key issues and questions regarding emergency preparedness that confront the region. I’ll also answer any further questions members of the

committee may have.

THE STEPS COG HAS TAKEN

At a special meeting on September 25, the COG board encouraged the Mayor of

the District of Columbia and the chief executives from all the region’s jurisdictions

to work with COG to ensure that our regional infrastructure was prepared to respond to catastrophic events like those on September 11.

At that meeting, we began the process of reviewing the police and fire mutual aid

agreements that COG has had in place since the early 1970’s. The system worked

very well on September 11, but we realize they need to be widened to address the

new types of threats that can be directed at the Washington area.

On October 10, COG’s Chair Carol Schwartz, an at-large member of the District

of Columbia Council, sent a letter to Secretary Tom Ridge of the Office of Homeland

Security, asking him to make security plans for this region a model for the nation.

On October 24, Chair Schwartz convened the first meeting of the COG Board Ad

Hoc Task Force on Emergency Preparedness. The task force will continue to meet

to coordinate regional emergency response plans into a unit that addresses policymaking, public safety, transportation, evacuation, communications, public utilities

and health systems.

On October 25, COG’s Energy Policy Advisory Committee, which will report to the

Board task force, met with the region’s energy providers and distributors to get an

assessment of the state of security for energy generation, transmission and distribution facilities in the region. We have the participation of the major utilities in the

area and the senior-level energy managers of our local governments. Efforts are underway to coordinate the committee’s work with Federal officials.

On October 30, another major part of the COG task force began working as transportation officials from around the region met to consider transportation plans in

the event of an emergency. They discussed the need for new radio systems to let

police and transportation officials from different jurisdictions contact each other directly, as well as devising a plan to let the public know how to get home in the

event of an emergency.

At the next COG Board meeting, we will be very pleased to present the recently

completed regional Planning Guidance to help health care systems handle bioterrorism. This document is a model of the kind of coordination that COG helps to

sponsor in the region. It is designed so that every health official in the region knows

the lines of authority in each jurisdiction. More importantly, it details the relevant

information that must be gathered during what is termed a ‘‘bio-event,’’ the methods

of analysis to be used and the actions that must be taken. It is designed to ensure

that regional health officials are responding in an organized, coordinated manner.

COG will also take a fresh look at its overall communications and coordination

role during emergencies. We have in place a system of conference calls and notifica-
19

tion systems among government officials that will be strengthened and kept up-todate. Finally, COG is working on a critical issue that will require Congressional action. That is the passage of legislation to address liability issues between jurisdictions when the region’s police and fire mutual aid agreements must be used.

In conclusion, I want the committee members to know that the Council of Governments is committed to working with the Federal Government, through FEMA and

the Office of Homeland Security and with every jurisdiction in the region to develop

the emergency preparedness plans that we need in the region. I know I speak for

all of our board members when I say we regard this task as our goal and our duty.

We are working with caution, care and all deliberate speed and we will remain

in close contact with this committee and the relevant Federal offices as we move

forward.

PREPARED STATEMENT OF RICHARD WHITE

Chairman Landrieu and members of the Subcommittee, good afternoon, and

thank you for asking me to testify on the important subject of emergency preparedness in the wake of September 11. I am Richard White, and I am proud to serve

as General Manager of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority

(WMATA) here in the National Capital Region.

The events of September 11 have affected all aspects of national life. Daily and

routine events like business trips, vacation travel, and commuting have been

changed forever. Although WMATA handled its mission well on that tragic day, we

now face altered expectations, from our customers, many of whom work for the Federal Government.

By way of background, WMATA was created in 1967 through enactment of legislation by the U.S. Congress, and by the Commonwealth of Virginia, the State of

Maryland, and the District of Columbia. The Metro System was designed primarily

to serve the employees of the Federal Government, the citizens of our region and

the entire Nation who come to Washington to do business with the Federal Government, and the millions of people who visit the National Capital Region from

throughout the world.

Approximately 40 percent, or 200,000 of the region’s residents who commute to

the National Capital Core Area use transit. Half of Metrorail stations serve Federal

facilities, and about 36 percent of the locally based Federal workforce use the Metro

system to commute to their jobs. Safety and security are our top concern for each

of the 1.1 million daily trips provided our rail and bus system, so the important

work of the National Capital Region can continue under all circumstances.

Before responding to your questions regarding safety, I would like to acknowledge

the extraordinary efforts of our New York and New Jersey colleagues. They were

heroes in their communities. There were many courageous acts performed by transit

employees, actions which saved thousands of lives that otherwise could have been

lost in the subway tunnels that ran underneath the World Trade Center complex.

In those and other systems across the Nation, America’s transit customers were

safeguarded on that sad day. And, Madame Chairman and members of the Committee, I believe that WMATA and transit systems across the country will play an

even greater role in our national defense and national security in the months and

years ahead.

The most significant issue facing WMATA is adapting to the post September 11

reality that our freedom of mobility has been challenged. Security is paramount in

the minds of our riders. WMATA is considered one of the safest transit systems in

the country, but we are always reviewing ways to improve. Even before September

11, WMATA had prepared System Safety and System Security Program Plans; had

developed standard operating procedures and plans to guide a variety of operational

response situations; had established procedures and practices for activating our

Emergency Operations Command Center (EOC); and had created redundant communications systems. In addition, we have been conducting annual counter-terrorism and explosive incident training for police and operations personnel, as well

as providing a high level of interagency coordination and training programs and exercises with the many law enforcement and fire and emergency rescue agencies in

the metropolitan area.

Since September 11 we have taken a number of actions to provide enhanced security, including:

Law Enforcement Visibility.—Metro Transit Police and all Metro employees remain on high alert. Additional uniformed and plainclothes officers have been deployed throughout the Metro System, wearing bright orange safety vests to make
20

them more visible to customers. Further, many of our other front line personnel also

wear bright colored vests to make them more visible to our customers.

Improved Standard Operating Procedures.—Revised procedures were put into

place October 18, 2001, for responding to suspected releases of hazardous materials

on a train, right-of-way, rail station and on a Metrobus. A companion training program for all appropriate operations employees is also being put into place. These

procedures, developed in consultation with our local fire departments, strike an appropriate balance between when, in case of an incident, we stop service for an indefinite period of time and when we continue to operate, but in a restricted manner.

Daily Sweeps.—Each day our Operations Department performs thorough safety

and security inspections of both our revenue and non-revenue facilities at the beginning of each shift.

Removal of Trash and Recycling Containers.—All trash containers and recycling

bins have been removed from our station platforms and relocated to other less

crowded areas in order to minimize the possibility of these being used for destructive purposes. We have also moved, or removed, bicycle lockers and newspaper vending machines from areas that sit below rail overpasses.

‘‘Bomb Threat’’ Assessments.—We have reinstructed our employees in reporting

suspicious or unattended packages and in dealing with phone in threats.

Enlist the Help of our Customers.—Several ‘‘Dear Fellow Rider’’ letters have been

distributed to our customers to engage them in our security efforts and to ask them

to help to be our eyes and ears in reporting unusual events.

Improved Internal WMATA Security, Procedures and Communications.—We have

updated the emergency evacuation plans for each of our facilities and are conducting

emergency evacuation drills. The security at our headquarters building has been enhanced and we have plans to implement an electronic access system. In our mailroom, we have conducted training sessions, with written guidelines, and issued personal protective gloves for all mail handlers. All WMATA employees are receiving

training on emergency management issues, such as station and train evacuation

procedures and identifying and reporting unattended packages.

REQUEST FOR SECURITY FUNDING

We recently have conducted an updated comprehensive risk assessment of our

revenue and non-revenue facilities and equipment. On October 12 we sent a request

to the Office of Management and Budget Director Daniels detailing our a request

of $190 million in security funding requirements based on the security assessments

that have been made to date. I am submitting for the record a copy of our request

to OMB Director Daniels. Our request covers:

[Millions of Dollars]

Description of Enhancement Cost

Additional high visibility uniformed patrols at key Metrorail stations and

eight additional K–9 teams ............................................................................... 2.0

Completion of Metrorail Fiber Optic Network vital for video recording devices ..................................................................................................................... 2.2

Metrorail Facilities Intrusion Detection Equipment ........................................... 8.9

Electronic Employee ID targets and vehicular gates at all Metro facilities ..... 1.8

Personal Protective Equipment for 5,000 employees; training; and satellite

telephones for key personnel ............................................................................. 5.0

Facilities modifications for bomb resistance, including bomb containment

trash containers at all stations ......................................................................... 7.0

Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) System for Metrobus to pinpoint the exact

location of all our buses and to direct emergency personnel .......................... 15.0

Expand chemical emergency sensor program ...................................................... 81.0

Intrusion Detection Warning System, Closed Circuit TV, and alarms at Metrorail shops and yards ....................................................................................... 7.2

Backup Operations Control Center and Emergency Command Center ............ 40.0

Digital cameras installed on all Metrobuses ....................................................... 20.0

Total ................................................................................................................. 190.1

Our total $190.1 million request includes items that we believe are highly valuable and directly linked to enhancing our safety and security capabilities for our

customers and our employees.

EMERGENCY PLANNING IN THE NATIONAL CAPITAL REGION

We are working closely with the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (MWCOG) as a key member of a transportation committee—chaired by City
21

of Fairfax Mayor John Mason, who also serves as chairman of MWCOG’s National

Capital Region Transportation Planning Board—to ensure that our Metro system is

seen by all as a vital component of this region’s national defense and emergency response strategy. The important work of this transportation committee is now bringing together all the region’s transportation implementation agencies (DCDOT,

VDOT, MDOT) and the region’s 11 transit providers to open the lines of communication and coordination in an emergency situation, and to develop a plan or ‘‘play

book’’ for any number of situations that may arise in the future. This effort, however, cannot stand on its own. As part of a broader effort the MWCOG Board,

chaired by D.C. Council Member Carol Schwartz, is seeking to establish a truly regional emergency response plan that includes police and security, fire and safety,

emergency medical and regional communications. It is designed to mirror the work

being done by Governor Tom Ridge in the President’s Office of Homeland Security.

There are several additional working groups that are undertaking similar efforts

to ensure a regional, rather than local, response to any future potential terrorist

acts. Madame Chair and members of the committee, I feel strongly that any efforts

along these lines will only succeed when everyone who is a major stakeholder in the

safety and security of this National Capital Region, including the civilian and military components of the Federal Government, the State governments and regional

and local governmental agencies, has a seat at the table and is a contributing participant as plans are being developed.

CONCLUSION

I greatly appreciate the Subcommittee’s consideration of WMATA’s funding request for security enhancements. Now is the time for the Nation to consider certain

transit properties, such as the WMATA System, as part of the national defense system, and to contemplate their value and needs as the evacuation method of choice,

and possibly necessity, during specific emergency situations. Every mode of transportation is important during emergencies, but transit has experienced the highest

growth rate of any of the transportation modes over the past 5 years. It is able to

move people much more quickly and efficiently than congested roads and highways

can. The Nation needs to view our transit systems in this national defense context

in order to properly recognize the new reality. Given the fact that WMATA is located in the National Capital Region and is so integral to the workings of the Federal Government, there is an even greater need to enhance security in the Metro

System.

Thank you for holding a hearing on this important subject. I look forward to answering your questions.

Senator LANDRIEU. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, for that very concise

and instructive statement, and now we will hear from our council

chair.

STATEMENT OF LINDA W. CROPP, CHAIRMAN, COUNCIL OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

Ms. CROPP. Thank you very much, and good afternoon, Chairwoman Landrieu and Senators DeWine and Reed. It is a pleasure

to be here with you, and thank you for the invitation to allow the

legislative branch of Government to come and testify before you.

First, let me emphasize that the District of Columbia has an

operational emergency preparedness and response plan to serve the

needs of all who live, work, and visit the Nation’s Capital. I will

not read the entire testimony, but I would like to submit the entire

testimony for the record.

While no one anticipated the terrorist attacks of September 11,

there did exist on that day a working emergency operations center

at the District of Columbia Emergency Management Agency, where

the Mayor went and became the incident commander, as is protocol, from which the media communications operations was

launched, and where all interagency coordination occurred that

day, as is protocol.
22

With the anthrax concern, our Mayor gave this city and, indeed,

the Nation, a sense of calm, strength, and stability.

Also on September 11, the District of Columbia had the Metropolitan Police Department state of the art joint operations command center up and running, which coordinated all law enforcement operations, both Federal and local, throughout the city and,

as you may know, the JOCC was instrumental in rumor control.

Since September 11, the District government has been participating with our Federal, regional, and private sector partners in

comprehensive planning for other potential terrorist attacks. Immediately after 9/11, the Mayor established a domestic terrorism task

force in which virtually his entire cabinet has participated, along

with the legislative branch. Kathy Patterson, who chairs our Judiciary Committee, Vincent Orange with Government Operations,

and several other council chairs.

Through these meetings, the Williams administration has been

updating and enhancing the District’s emergency operation plans,

which from now on will be based on the Federal response plan. The

District’s domestic terrorism task force has participated in table

top exercises to test and practice the city’s response to disaster.

As you know, the District also has responded to 9/11 by immediately assessing its critical needs in terms of resources for specialized equipment, personnel training, and communications infrastructure. The Mayor has outlined the details of this $250 million

request for Federal funding, which is vital to ensure the adequate

emergency preparedness and response in this Nation’s Capital.

The District of Columbia enjoys many benefits, but also bears

several unique costs because of its status as the Nation’s Capital.

With regard to the effect of the devastating terrorist attacks on

September 11 and their continuing aftermath, let me review some

of the unique costs that are being borne by the District government, and why we need the uniquely high Federal dollars to assist

us both directly with these costs and to assist with our economic

survival so that the District has sufficient revenue to help pay for

vital services that we provide to the Federal Government.

As you know, it is primarily local resources that have been used

to protect the public safety and public health of not only the

600,000 residents who live within the District and not only the 2

million people, mostly from Maryland and Virginia, who work here

every day, but also the foreign embassies and the entire Federal establishment which is headquartered here in our Nation’s Capital.

The reality is that local governments everywhere are the first responders in this new war against terrorism on our homeland. It

has been our local police officers, local firefighters, local emergency

medical technicians, local management directors, local public

health officials who have been the first responders to the attacks

and the threats against America. Here in the Nation’s Capital,

which has been and will continue to be a primary target for terrorism, it has been locally raised revenue that has been paying in

large amounts for the safety and health of the Federal Government

and its workforce.

While our fervent patriotism and responsibility demands that we

protect our Federal Government, our fervor and our responsibility

is not diminished to protect our local residents and businesses.
23

Therefore, Congress and the President must recognize that when,

for example, our police force is deployed from our neighborhoods to

protect Federal facilities and Federal officials, more than what was

previously the norm, our local residents and businesses become less

protected than previous.

When demand by the Federal Government for the District’s first

responders is greater than can be paid for by locally raised revenue, the Federal Government has a special responsibility to help

address these financial needs. Other cities have States that step up

to the plate, and other cities simply do not have the level of Federal presence and historic monuments that we have.

Mayor Williams has indicated the District is expected to lose

$750 million in just the first 6 months after September 11. At least

10,000 small businesses are at risk, a result of this disaster.

I am going to skip over some of my testimony.

Of course, we are a Nation at war, and unlike any war we have

ever experienced, because it is a war against terrorism in our

homeland and the Nation’s Capital, it is at the epicenter of this

war. We who live here, with the nightly roar of F–15 Air Force jets

flying overhead, with our main post office and many mail rooms

closed due to anthrax contamination, and with the constant uncertainty of when and where and in what form the next attack will

take place, we are painfully aware of what a prime target we are

to our enemies, and yet those jets and other security precautions

that are being taken actually make us one of the most protected

cities in America today.

The Federal Government certainly must take all the necessary

steps to ensure the security of Federal facilities and officials in

Washington, and the District government with our police, fire, public health, emergency management, and other agencies is certainly

doing our part to assist in this security cost, for which the District

has not been adequately compensated.

Security must be balanced with public accessibility and democratic values. We worry about projecting the wrong negative image

of a city under siege and hurting tourism, which is our number one

business, once we get past the Federal Government. We must reopen and advertise the reopening of the White House, the United

States Capitol, and our other national icons here to tourists as soon

as possible.

We urge you to support the request of the National Capital Planning Commission for Federal funding of security measures which

are comprehensively designed and built to increase public safety

while also maintaining public accessibility and the physical beauty

of the Nation’s Capital.

We appreciate the President’s request for $25 million in emergency management funds to the District. We also appreciate that

this amount is in addition to the $16 million already included in

both the House and Senate version of the 2002 budget. However,

these amounts, as the Mayor detailed, fall far short of the city’s

needs. The Council joins the Mayor in asking for your support and

advocacy in obtaining the District’s full request of $1 billion in

emergency preparedness and economic assistance funding. These

funds are critical to the District’s survival. The specific purposes of
24

each of these dollars are detailed in the document provided by the

mayor to the Congress and the White House.

The Council calls upon the Congress to support Congresswoman

Norton’s legislation to require the District government to be included in all aspects of Federal emergency planning, emergency

preparedness. We also support the legislation to provide the Mayor

of the District of Columbia with the authority to mobilize the National Guard, the same authority that governments of all 50 States

have. The Council joins with the Mayor and our Congresswoman

in urging the subcommittee’s advocacy for short-term funding.

PREPARED STATEMENT

I want to thank you again for this opportunity to testify before

the subcommittee today and, as always, I look forward to working

with you to ensure a brighter tomorrow for the Nation’s Capital for

all who live, work, and visit here.

Thank you very much.

[The statements follow:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF LINDA CROPP

Good morning, Chairwoman Landrieu and members of the Subcommittee, and

thank you for your invitation to testify at this hearing today. I would like to take

this opportunity to comment on the District of Columbia’s emergency preparedness

and the District’s economy in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks on the

United States.

First, let me emphasize that the District of Columbia has an operational emergency preparedness and response plan to serve the needs of all who live, work and

visit the Nation’s Capital. While no one anticipated the terrorist attacks of September 11, there did exist on that day a working emergency operations center at

the District of Columbia Emergency Management Agency, where the Mayor went

and became the Incident Commander, as is protocol, and from which the media communications operation was launched, and where all inter-agency coordination occurred that day, as is protocol.

Also on September 11, the District of Columbia had the Metropolitan Police Department’s state of the art Joint Operations Command Center (JOCC) up and running, which coordinated all law enforcement operations—both Federal and local—

throughout the city. As you may know, the JOCC was instrumental in rumor control

and law enforcement deployment throughout 9/11. In addition, the District implemented its evacuation plan for traffic, which was used successfully on 9/11, given

the extraordinary circumstances of a non-staggered closure of all Federal offices as

well as the closure of the city’s major bridges out of the city—closures which occurred, I might note, without appropriate consultation with District officials.

Since September 11, the District government has been participating—with our

Federal, regional and private sector partners—in comprehensive planning for other

potential terrorist attacks. Immediately after 9/11, the Mayor established a domestic

terrorism task force, in which virtually his entire cabinet has participated (along

with Council member Kathy Patterson, who chairs our Judiciary Committee, as the

Council’s representative). Through these meetings, the Williams Administration has

been updating and enhancing the District’s emergency operations plan, which from

now on will be based on the Federal Response Plan, which has a basic plan and

then over two dozen emergency support functions (e.g., law enforcement, urban

search and rescue, mass care, transportation, communications, etc.). The enhanced

plan is almost completed and once final, will be published in the DC Register and

sent to the Council for approval. (A copy of the most recent draft of this enhanced

emergency response plan is available here and will be submitted for the record, with

your permission.)

The District’s domestic terrorism task force has participated in table top exercises

to test and practice the city’s response to a disaster. As you know, the District also

has responded to 9/11 by immediately assessing its critical needs in terms of resources for specialized equipment, personnel training and communications infrastructure. The Mayor has outlined the details of this $250 million request for Fed-
25

eral funding which is vital to ensure adequate emergency preparedness and response in the Nation’s Capital.

The District of Columbia enjoys many benefits but also bears several unique costs

because of its status as the Nation’s Capital. With regard to the effects of the devastating terrorist attacks of September 11 and their continuing aftermath, let me

review some of the unique costs that are being borne by the District government,

and why we need uniquely high Federal dollars to assist us both directly with these

costs, and to assist with our economic survival so that the District has sufficient

revenue to help pay for vital services that we provide to the Federal Government.

As you know, it is primarily local resources that have been used to protect the

public safety and public health of not only the 600,000 residents who live within

the District, and not only the two million people (mostly from Maryland and Virginia) who work here every day, but also the foreign embassies and the entire Federal establishment which is headquartered here in the Nation’s Capital.

The reality is that local governments everywhere are the first responders in this

new war against terrorism on our homeland. It has been local police officers, local

firefighters, local emergency medical technicians, local emergency management directors, and local public health officials who have been the first responders to the

attacks and threats against America. Here in the Nation’s Capital, which has been

and will continue to be a primary target for terrorism, it has been locally raised revenues that have been paying in large amounts for the safety and health of the Federal Government and its workforce.

While our fervent patriotism and responsibility demands that we protect our Federal Government, our fervor and responsibility is not diminished to protect our local

residents and businesses. Therefore, the Congress and the President must recognize

that when, for example, our police force is deployed from neighborhoods to protect

Federal facilities and Federal officials more than what was previously normal, our

local residents and businesses become less protected than previously. When demand

by the Federal Government for the District’s first responders is greater than can

be paid for by locally raised revenue, the Federal Government has a special responsibility to help address these financial needs. Other cities have States that step up

to the plate, and other cities simply do not have the level of Federal presence to

protect as we must do here in the Nation’s Capital.

If the United States Capitol police force of about 1,200 officers (which is the same

size as the police force in San Diego that protects a city of over one million residents) must be supplemented with D.C. National Guards to protect the Capitol complex and these surroundings, then surely the Congress recognizes that the District’s

entire police force of 3,600 officers must also be supplemented. As Mayor Williams has indicated, the District is expected to lose $750 million in

just the first six months following September 11. At least 10,000 small businesses

the engine that generates economic growth are at risk. As a result of this economic

disaster, the District government itself is currently projected to lose $200 million in

tax revenue over the next year. Moreover, the cost to District agencies to enhance

emergency preparedness is $250 million. And this amount, as I’ve stated, does not

include the substantial costs of increased protection to the Federal establishment.

To quantify our post–911 economic loss in human terms, the Mayor has submitted

documentation as to why we need approximately $766 million in economic recovery

assistance. Twenty-four thousand District jobs are projected to be lost during the

next 6 months jobs held not only by DC residents but also in fact a majority by residents of Maryland and Virginia. At least half of these jobs are in the hotel and restaurant business. Right now, about half of the local travel, hotel, restaurant and

tourism-related employees are unemployed. The projected loss of these tens of thousands of jobs in the District completely wipes out all of the employment gains that

we had finally made in the District during the past few years after decades of job

loss.

These gloomy projections were made prior to the most recent anthrax scares and

deaths, which of course shut down Congressional buildings last month, along with

mail delivery service throughout the entire city, further negatively impacting both

businesses and residents.

Reagan National Airport, which is thankfully open again and which during the

past few weeks has thankfully resumed service to 12 more cities, is still today running at only one-third of the commercial jet service it provided prior to September

11. We need to establish benchmarks and timetables to restore full service to National Airport—what the Mayor has accurately described as our front door.

Tours of our most popular destinations, particularly for schoolchildren the White

House, the U.S. Capitol building, the FBI, the Supreme Court, and the Bureau of

Engraving and Printing have been suspended indefinitely, and of course the Washington Monument has been closed for a long time due to renovations. This of course
26

sends an inaccurate message to the Nation that all of Washington is closed, and it

obviously has a downward ripple effect on the entire hospitality sector.

Although other monuments and museums on the Mall and elsewhere are in fact

open, there are currently few visitors. Other than the Federal Government, tourism

is the District’s most important industry, with over 25 million visitors a year to

Washington. We must do everything we can to return to an image of being safe and

open for business and pleasure travellers to visit Washington.

Of course we are a Nation at war, and unlike any war we have ever experienced,

because it is a war against terrorism on our own homeland. And the Nation’s Capital is at the epicenter of this war. We, who live here with the nightly roar of F–

15 Air Force jets flying overhead, with our main post office and many mailrooms

closed due to anthrax contamination, and with the constant uncertainty of when

and where and in what form the next terrorist attack will take place, are painfully

aware of what a prime target we are to our enemies. And yet those jets and other

security precautions that are being taken actually make us one of the most protected cities in America today.

The Federal Government certainly must take all necessary steps to ensure the security of Federal facilities and officials in Washington. And the District government,

with our police, fire, public health, emergency management and other agencies, is

certainly doing our part to assist with this security—costs for which the District has

not been adequately compensated.

However, as we increase security against terrorism, which we are doing, and as

we prepare for and respond quickly and comprehensively to various emergencies

and ensure the public safety and health, which we also are doing, we must be equally vigilant about maintaining our free, open and economically prosperous society

which this war is all about. Security must be balanced with public accessibility and

democratic values. Because if we continue falling too much into a fortress mentality—where, for example, we allow the proliferation of ugly concrete jersey barriers which shut off citizens from their public streets, their national symbols, and

their daily commerce—we will continue to project the wrong negative image of a city

under siege, thereby killing the economic vitality of Washington, DC and providing

the terrorists with a huge victory. That is why we must re-open and advertise the

re-opening of the White House and the United States Capitol and our other national

icons here to tourists as soon as possible. That is also why I urge you to support

the request by the National Capital Planning Commission for Federal funding of security measures which are comprehensively designed and built to increase public

safety while also maintaining public accessibility and the physical beauty of the Nation’s Capital. We appreciate the President’s request for $25 million in emergency management funds for the District of Columbia out of the first $20 billion in supplemental funds

that were authorized by Congress to address the immediate needs of affected jurisdictions following the September 11 attacks. We also appreciate that this amount

is in addition to the $16 million already included in both the House and Senate

versions of the fiscal year 2002 D.C. appropriations bill for the District to respond

to the attacks, and in addition to the $6 million received by the District in fiscal

year 2001 emergency supplemental appropriations to pay for police overtime in advance of the IMF/World Bank meetings in Washington that were ultimately cancelled.

However, these amounts, as the Mayor has detailed, fall far short of the city’s

needs. The Council joins the Mayor in asking for your support and advocacy in obtaining the District’s full request for $1 billion in emergency preparedness and economic assistance funding. These funds are critical to the District’s survival. The specific purposes of each of these dollars are detailed in documents provided by the

Mayor to the Congress and the White House.

The Council calls upon Congress to support Congresswoman Norton’s legislation

to require the District government to be included in all aspects of Federal emergency planning, domestic preparedness and homeland security which affect the Nation’s Capital. The Council also urges your support of her legislation to provide the

Mayor of the District of Columbia with the authority to mobilize the National

Guard—the same authority that the governors of all 50 States have. We have all

realized that more systematic consultation, cooperation and coordination amongst

Federal, District and regional officials are essential to better anticipate, prepare for

and respond to the array of emergencies with which we are challenged as the Nation’s Capital community.

The Council joins with the Mayor and Congresswoman Norton in urging this subcommittee’s advocacy of not only this short-term Federal funding necessary to pay

for the Federal Government’s fair share of the District’s immediate and substantial

costs as a result of the recent terrorist attacks—costs for emergency preparedness,
27

public safety, public health and economic recovery assistance in the Nation’s Capital. We also once again join with the Mayor in urging Congressional and White

House support for Congresswoman Norton’s legislation to provide an annual funding

source for the District of Columbia—one that adequately compensates us for the annual costs of services provided and revenue denied as a result of the Federal presence and the unique Congressional prohibition on taxing the income of two-thirds

of the income earned within the District of Columbia.

Thank you again for this opportunity to testify before the subcommittee today. As

always, I look forward to working with you to ensure a brighter tomorrow for the

Nation’s Capital and for all who live, work and visit here.

Senator LANDRIEU. Thank you all very, very much for your testimony. I think to expedite the hearing we could go into some questions, perhaps our first round of 5 minutes each, and then go

through a second round of question and comments to the full panel.

Let me just make one observation before my questions. Shortchanging the District at this time would unquestionably put lives

at risk, and so I hope we take very seriously our efforts today to

hear carefully and clearly the request being made by this team and

to do our best to provide the resources necessary for the District

to protect and preserve lives, and to continue to serve as such a

symbol for our Nation.

Just as the Senator from Rhode Island mentioned his Government has a significant need, I am sure as I visit with my Governor

and legislative branch and local officials in Louisiana, and have

been meeting with them, their needs are quite significant, Ohio’s

needs are quite significant and our cities and our States will make

every effort to find moneys within their budget to set up their

plans, but particularly I was struck, mayor, by your comments

about the District and its attempts to do that, which all of our cities and States are attempting to.

You have been doubly hit, though, because one of your sources

of income being tourism, because you are, in fact, the Nation’s Capital, has taken a serious downturn, so it really inhibits your effort,

or makes more difficult the task before you.

Coming from a tourism State, as the City of New Orleans, I am

sympathetic and certainly can understand that, but let me just ask

for the record, what percentage of your revenues are tourism-related for your city, your tourism revenues? What percentage of your

budget, approximately, comes from tourism? Do we have any record

of that, or do you know, Ms. Cropp?

Mr. WILLIAMS. I could get you that exactly, Madam Chair.

Senator LANDRIEU. Approximately.

Mr. WILLIAMS. The sales tax is over $700 million, and as you can

imagine, a huge part of your sales tax is generated by tourism. I

can give you another example of the impact. There are fees, receipts that go toward defraying the cost of our new convention center, itself a locomotive for tourism. This is based on receipts from

our hotels and our restaurants.

When you have got a situation where a waiter is taking in in a

week what he normally would take in in receipts in an hour, you

can see how that has trailed off, but I can get you an exact table

of the amounts.

Senator LANDRIEU. Let the record just stay there. I know that

there are other committees that have looked more closely at the

economic issues, but it relates and overlaps, and is quite important

for us to have that clear picture, because this is about the District’s
28

efforts to invest in their own security plan, but those efforts themselves are hampered by the attacks and the consequences of the attacks, just for the record.

My questions would be these, Mr. Mayor. If you would maybe go

into some more detail—first of all, let me ask this, and then I will

get back to the regional. Has there been any thought to your plan,

which I have read and find very comprehensive in its request, but

has there been any thought to having an independent evaluation

of your plan? Do you believe that that would be important, or has

anyone suggested—has there been an independent evaluation of

the plan by an outside entity? Mr. LaPorte.

Mr. LAPORTE. After about a few weeks, after we wrote the plan

and started to kind of go through it and test it a little bit, we submitted it to the Federal Emergency Management Agency asking for

their review of the document specifically, both FEMA headquarters

and the FEMA region, and to look at our plan specifically and how

it corresponded with Maryland and Virginia’s. In fact, we shared

our plan with those two States as well.

FEMA has given us some pretty good feedback. We incorporated

that feedback in our plan. As any plan, it continues to evolve, but

it has received that review, and we also shared it with the field office of the FBI here in town.

Senator LANDRIEU. It might be helpful to our committee to have

that feedback as we evaluate the plan also. I think it would be very

helpful, and I commend you for submitting it for outside evaluation, particularly to an agency that probably supervises and helps

stand up emergency management plans all over the Nation, so they

would be in a good position to say what are some of the stronger

and weaker points of the plan.

Mr. Mayor, let me ask you, could you go into a little bit more detail about the regional cooperation efforts, and perhaps, Mrs.

Kellems, you would want to speak to that also. Could you just try

to describe in some more detail about what efforts have been made

with Virginia and Maryland, and how established are those institutions that will help us to form a seamless regional plan?

Several Senators, obviously from Maryland and Virginia have

mentioned to me their interest and concern in making sure that

our plan is coordinated with particularly those two States, and the

counties, so could you just go into some more detail to help us be

clearer on that point?

Ms. KELLEMS. Sure. We have got a number of different points of

connection, operationally. Everyone sitting at this table can tell you

about their specific functional area integration. I will give you some

of the overview of it.

On the law enforcement side, there is a longstanding relationship

between MPD and the Federal agencies, but also MPD and all of

the surrounding jurisdictions. Because we have so much interaction

in terms of large-scale events, other kinds of protests, this has been

a normal part of our operation, one that we have really focused on

in the last few weeks, of course, in terms of emergency response,

but that is very much part of the normal course of business for

MPD.

The same is very true of the fire and EMS department here. We

have, through the Metropolitan Washington Council of Govern-
29

ments, had for many years mutual aid agreements for fire and

emergency medical services with all of the surrounding jurisdictions. In fact, on September 11, many of those mutual aid agreements were invoked, allowing District fire and EMS folks to go provide support at the Pentagon while our own resources were backed

up by people from Maryland, by the departments from Maryland

coming in to back-fill for us.

In the department of health, and I hope Dr. Walks will get an

opportunity to talk more about this, we have probably the most significant advancement in the last couple of years. They have built

a network of monitoring symptomology, for example, because of the

impending threats just like this.

They have a communications network that allows all of the regional hospitals to communicate with each other instantly, get out

the kind of information they need, so on the operating level you are

seeing a lot of that, and of course through EMA, from a coordination perspective, we have representatives from the emergency management agencies who respond to our emergency operations center,

and we do the same for them, so I think across the board people

should rest assured that there is a significant amount of operations

and management integration now with all of the surrounding jurisdictions.

Senator LANDRIEU. Mr. Mayor, you indicated in your testimony

that you had recently conducted a table top exercise of this plan

that you are submitting, and you mentioned in your testimony you

found some kinks that needed to be worked out. Could you just go

into some more detail about how you actually walked through that

exercise? Did that exercise occur with all of your emergency support functions, and do you plan to go beyond any table top exercises

to perhaps some sort of real field testing or operations, and Mr.

Mayor, if you might comment, and then Mr. LaPorte or any of the

other panelists that would have something to share about this operation.

Mr. WILLIAMS. I would just say, Senator, just for your information, if you will, you can analogize it to World War II, General Marshall is Margret Kellems, and the commander on the scene—she

does not look like it, but—the commander on the scene is Peter

LaPorte, and she is responsible really, she is the ultimate person

responsible in terms of accountability for making all of this happen

and for bringing to bear all the resources, not only within the District, but across the region, if you will, to the scene, and I think

she is doing a brilliant job of it, so she really is the person responsible.

But in terms of these exercises themselves, the table top exercise

is an effort for us to actually put the plan into action, and following

this table top exercise I asked that we increase the frequency of

them and, if necessary, the duration of them, to see that we are

getting it right. Not that anything was grievously wrong, but to see

that we are getting it right, and even more importantly, we fully

intend to actually have sessions and practices out there in an open

setting involving our agencies, and I think as we get through this,

our private businesses as well, because everybody has to be prepared.
30

This particular exercise itself involved a hypothetical, obviously,

of a bomb in the subway out of one Judiciary Square, and how the

response would happen, and just some of the issues that came up.

One was the issue of seeing that your first responders are coming

to the scene and responding to the scene on predescribed routes

and plans, protocols and everything else, and at the same time reserving to civilian authority the official declaration of Tier 3 level

of alert, or preparedness, reserving to civilian authority obviously

the formal declaration of an emergency.

We talked about communications. We have all the technology

now in place. The communications protocols for Tier 1, as a matter

of fact, Level 1 District notification protocol for emergency action

talks about how the different classes, if you will, echelons in the

District government will be notified in an emergency. We talked

about how we would get immediate communication, continuous

communication out to people in the public in an emergency situation, the need to quickly begin sending out bulletins as quickly as

possible, get out there with a press conference in a matter of minutes, as opposed to a matter of hours.

So these are all issues that came up and we discussed.

Senator LANDRIEU. Well, my colleagues will have questions, but

I just want to follow up, because this was, of course, an issue that

we actually got to witness and see in New York, and we have had

our own exercises in terms of our own Federal responses to these

emergencies, but are you testifying that in your plan Mrs. Kellems

is the authority, police report to her, fire report to her, there would

be no problems with the CIA, the FBI, and how are the Federal

agencies and the jurisdictions—would they, under your plan, be responsive to your deputy? Is that what we are setting up?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Well, yes and no.

Senator LANDRIEU. Or is she just coordinating the city agencies?

Mr. WILLIAMS. She is coordinating the city agencies in an emergency. She would be over at the joint operations command center,

at the police department, representing me at the police department, and to the extent that at the joint operations command center there is active involvement—she can tell you about this—active

involvement from the Secret Service, the FBI, and other law enforcement there at the scene, she certainly is a conduit of that information, information assessment to me as mayor at the emergency operations center and the other authorities there.

Senator LANDRIEU. And who is the senior authority at that joint

operations center? Who is the top authority at that joint operations

center, chief, because I know you are represented there, the police

chief would be represented, the mayor’s office would be represented

as a joint center, but who does everyone answer to?

Mr. RAMSEY. Well, the job that we have is for law enforcement,

and depending on the nature of the incident for a terrorist attack,

for example, the FBI is the lead law enforcement agency. We all

come together, we do everything in consultation, but they would be

the lead law enforcement agency, but as it relates to the deployment of MPD assets, I certainly would be making that call.

We would use an incident command system, where everyone has

clear roles and responsibilities that would be given them in a situation like this, but we would have representatives not only from
31

Federal agencies but also from regional law enforcement agencies

that would be present at the time.

It really works quite well, but a lot of it is driven based on the

nature of the incident itself, in terms of who has the final say on

what law enforcement action would be taken in a given situation.

Senator LANDRIEU. Senator DeWine.

Senator DEWINE. I look down through the requests, obviously,

two of the big-ticket items are $46.2 million for the Office of Chief

Technology Officer for a first response land line, wireless system,

and then $32.4 million for a city-wide secure data center facility.

I know you have talked a little bit about that.

How long, for both of these, would it take to spend that money?

In other words, what is the startup?

Ms. KELLEMS. Some of the things we could begin immediately. If

you look at the second category—I am not going to find the page

in here, but the first response wireless communications, that is obviously our highest priority. It is the infrastructure that will allow

all the first responder agencies within the District to communicate

as well as with the outside jurisdictions, getting everyone on a common radio system, a common set of infrastructure.

The Office of the Chief Technology Officer to put things together,

things that are short-term and intermediate solutions, we could be

deploying them—we could be procuring them immediately and deploying them within about 30 days, begin the deployment. Some of

it is obviously longer term, in the more 9 to 12 month range, if you

are talking about building additional radio sites, so really everywhere in the range of that.

Senator DEWINE. Excuse me, does it all fit within 12 months?

Ms. KELLEMS. I am going to say most of it. There are certainly

items in there that may end up getting pushed beyond that deadline, but the idea of that is very short-term. In that category of

stuff we are talking about very short-term solutions.

The second category is a longer term proposition, again some of

which would begin immediately, but that would continue more into

the 24-month time frame. Its focus is, of course, secured network,

protecting against cyber terrorism as much as anything, and ensuring constant redundant secure information systems.

Senator DEWINE. Assuming both of these were completed, where

would that put you in relationship to other major cities in the country? Of course, it is a moving target. I understand everyone is trying to get caught up, but what is the benchmark here?

Ms. KELLEMS. On the first category, that would put us far beyond many jurisdictions, or many regions. The issue there, again,

is the interoperability of the various communication systems. Here

in Washington and the surrounding counties we have about a

dozen different radio systems that our public safety folks are on,

and this has been a persistent problem for 25 years that people

have been trying to resolve—since Air Florida, exactly.

What we are suggesting is that we think we can solve this problem in a very short time frame by building out an infrastructure

that would support everyone migrating to this system. Everyone

has the same problem, which is lack of infrastructure right now.
32

Senator DEWINE. One of the other big-ticket items is District of

Columbia public schools. I wonder who can talk to me a little bit

about that.

Ms. KELLEMS. I think I can, unless Peter wants to.

Senator DEWINE. And again—well, go ahead.

Ms. KELLEMS. The idea there was that shortly after the 11th, as

you mentioned, Senator, there was a lot of concern about making

sure that there were adequate measures to protect the children.

It was particularly significant, because we kept all of our children in school, which we think was the right decision on September

11, with hundreds of thousands of parents and families struggling

to get out of the city and pick up their kids, and in those conversations a lot of people raised concerns not just about the post-disaster

response, but just about the preparedness of children. Are we training them effectively, are there facilities secure, so there were a couple of big things in there.

Metal detectors, which would be used all the time, in more sort

of a preparedness sense than a response sense, and some architectural landscaping, those kinds of things, to harden our schools,

make the school buildings themselves a little more capable of withstanding, God forbid, some kind of cataclysmic event. That is what

the bulk of that cost is.

Senator DEWINE. Would you anticipate the use of metal detectors all the time?

Ms. KELLEMS. They are in there. I think that is a policy decision

that would need to be made between the Mayor and the Superintendent. The idea is, though, certainly that they would be available any time there is a threat, and if a decision is made to use

them on an ongoing basis they would be available for that.

Senator DEWINE. Break out for me, if you could, of the $65.6 million, what are the big-ticket items there?

Ms. KELLEMS. I am sorry, are you still in the public schools?

Senator DEWINE. Yes, still in public schools.

Ms. KELLEMS. That was done essentially on a per-school average

cost. We have I think 175 school buildings. We assume that half

of them are fairly large, half of them are fairly small. The kinds

of things you do are move the road or the driveways further back

from the schools, put harder barriers between the schools and

parking lots, things like that, that you are really securing it externally, also reinforcing the facilities that you have inside to withstand any kind of shock or explosion, to have safe places in the

schools. It is that sort of thing.

Senator DEWINE. Thank you.

Senator LANDRIEU. Senator Reed.

Senator REED. Thank you, Madam Chairman.

First, let me associate myself with Mayor Williams’ remarks

commending the police officers and firefighters and emergency

medical technicians in the District, and also their colleagues. One

reason I have to say that is my brother is a firefighter and it

makes the peace at home, but thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for

what you have done, and Dr. Walks, your department, too.

Let me just follow up quickly with some questions and issues

that have been raised. First, just a general point. Are there com-
33

petitive grant programs that might be able to satisfy some of the

needs, and are you applying for those?

Mr. LAPORTE. Yes, let me speak to some of the grant program.

The Department of Justice specifically had a planning and equipment grant. In fiscal year 1999, the city was treated as a municipality. We were able to apply for $200,000. We had done that. In

fiscal year 2000, the appropriations defined 50 States specifically.

At that time, I was the Director of Emergency Management in

Massachusetts, so I know Rhode Island very well. I grew up in

Attleborough, right on the border.

In 2000 we made a request to apply for those funds. We were denied initially, but with some persistence the Department of Justice

invited us and the territories to participate in that program, so we

are fully engaged in those programs, applying for the maximum

amount of money, as well as asking for more than they are saying

we can get. We have applied for those programs, we have finished

our three-part assessment, which is threat vulnerability and public

health, which is an online submission. We are about 10 days away

from actual submission of that, so every program that Justice has

we have knocked on their door.

Senator REED. Very good, and you will presumptively qualify,

after your plan has been accepted, for the actual equipment grants?

Mr. LAPORTE. And those moneys specifically equal—in 2000 it is $361,000, same as in 2001. In 2002, we have yet to see exactly

what that appropriation is.

Senator REED. But that would barely put a dent in the needs

that you have identified today.

Mr. LAPORTE. A very limited amount of money, and specifically

the money is categorized for only specific items that you can use

it for.

Senator REED. Thank you. Let me follow up on the point that the

chairlady made, and that is, you have had a succession of table top

exercises. Have you actually scheduled an operational exercise, because I think the quantum leap in knowledge from going from inside an air conditioned room with telephones and discovering the

problems to having people drive around looking for the address and

not finding it is a huge increment in knowledge.

Mr. LAPORTE. It is our plan, as we go from table tops to functional to full-scale, it is our plan to do that. In fact, the District in

May of 2000 participated, as one of three jurisdictions in the country, in the TOP OFF exercise, which was a full-scale exercise, full

field exercise. That certainly brought up a number of issues, and

it is our intent to go forward aggressively with a number of exercises testing the wide varied challenges that we will face.

Senator REED. But you have not set a date yet. You have not set

a schedule yet, is that correct? There is no schedule?

Ms. KELLEMS. That is correct, there is no schedule yet.

Senator REED. And what is inhibiting you, money?

Ms. KELLEMS. A couple of things. We think it is a useful exercise

to go through what we are now. The paper version of this, you

would be surprised how much you can gather sitting around a conference table.

I think that once we are quite certain we have been through, I

would guess, a couple more of these, we will deploy out in the field,
34

but yes, you are acting with fake equipment at this point. There

is a lot of stuff we do not have that we would want to use in that

circumstance, and so it will be a hybrid, somewhere between a

table top and doing an exercise with the real thing, but not being

equipped to do it.

Senator REED. Thank you.

Let me follow up a final category with Dr. Walks. As Ms.

Kellems suggested, a lot of the police and fire coordination has

been going on for years and years and years, because of the nature

of Washington and the nature of incidents here, but you were

thrust into a very, virtually unique situation, and I would suspect

it exposed a great deal of problems with communication, with collaboration and coordination. If you would elaborate on that, that

would be useful.

Dr. WALKS. Thank you, Senator. One of my challenges when I

talk about what we have done in the last several weeks is to sort

of balance that, look at what we did, and at the same time say, but

we still need a lot more, because there was a tremendous amount

of good that came out of the last several weeks, and the place I always start is with the Mayor’s leadership, because we were ordered

by the Mayor to prepare a day one plan, what if, what would you

do if.

The department of health has been working for about 5 years regionally, so that part is not new to us. The Council of Governments

has supported those efforts in a real way, and we have a regional

plan to respond to bio and chemical attacks. We had to put that

plan into place, and it actually worked pretty well.

It is built on relationships. It is built on not just knowing who

you will call, but knowing in terms of a relationship who you are

going to call. We had tremendous responses from our neighboring

jurisdictions. Georges Benjamin knows me as Ivan, I know him as

Georges, Ann Peterson, who was in Virginia a couple of weeks ago,

those kinds of relationships allowed us to perform very well.

But what we also found was, this is part of the kind of leadership

we have in the District. The folks who had to work were willing

to come to work and stay. We had people do their regular day job,

then go and answer the hotline phones overnight with a pack of

clothes hanging in the cubicle where they worked. They would go

downstairs and shower, then go back to work the next morning.

That kind of a commitment is a testimony to the Mayor’s leadership and their willingness to work for him.

The danger in that is that it really pointed out a tremendous

problem for us. We are dependent on people going above and beyond the call of duty in ways that they are not healthy over a long

period of time. We are dependent on a lot of person-work.

For example, the communications system that Deputy Mayor

Kellems talks about is critical. We did a lot. We did it with paper

and with people. We had folks actually driving out to the hospitals,

looking at patients, getting information real-time, so we could meet

the Mayor’s mandate of having clear information real-time every

day, so that there was no need for speculation about what was

going on.

I think that what we have seen in the District, particularly

around what we have done with our health partners is, you have
35

seen clear commitment, absolute response to strong leadership

coming out of the Mayor’s office, but then recognizing that that is

not how we really need to do this going forward. We really need

the kind of technical support that is being talked about, and we

need to make sure that the relationships we have built we do not

abuse by asking people to work as individual people outside of a

system that we know we can put into place.

Senator REED. Thank you, doctor.

One just final question, which, looking over the material, the national pharmaceutical stockpile, would you just very briefly explain

what it is?

Dr. WALKS. Brief answers are not my strong suit, but I will try.

The national pharmaceutical stockpile is the pile of drugs that

the Government has, the Federal Government has in case they are

needed in a particular jurisdiction. We actually used a lot of Cipro

and doxycycline from that stockpile over the last couple of months.

The challenge with that for us as a local jurisdiction is, we are

supposed to get that handed to us when the Mayor calls and asks

for it. What we do with it would be a challenge. We saw tremendous Federal cooperation. They brought drugs and people this time

for us. What we are supposed to do is to provide the people, and

they are supposed to bring the drugs. If they had just dropped off

those drugs this time, we would have had a problem. We did over

17,000 patient visits in a little over a week. That is a tremendous

amount of person-power, and so our planning needs to include the

people, as well as the medication.

Senator REED. Thank you, doctor.

Thank you.

Senator LANDRIEU. Thank you. Just a point on one of the items

that has caught my attention—many of them are very, very important, but this child care center, center for emergency personnel

that you request under your Department of Human Services, just

if somebody just wants to comment briefly, it would seem to me

that $24,000 is a minimum amount to prepare some sort of arrangement for personnel workers, particularly workers that would

be for extended periods of time, as we have seen with the New

York City situation.

And what an important part of any emergency plan this would

be for all of our cities and States, to have some system for supporting the families of the emergency responders, because then everyone benefits if the responder, him or herself, can really be fully

engaged in the work, not having to worry about their own personal

family or children, would seem to me a very wise expenditure of

dollars, and it is only $24,000, so could you, Ms. Kellems, comment?

Ms. KELLEMS. Sure. What we are trying to do is build on some

resources we already have, use existing recreational facilities, or

existing other facilities. We would do some minimal build-out of

them. What we would end up staffing them with are D.C. government personnel who are trained to work with the kids through the

Department of Human Services, or the Department of Parks and

Recreation.

As an overall note, and I will come back to that in just a moment, the request that we have here is essentially one-time capital
36

investments. What you do not see reflected in here is ongoing personnel costs. We anticipate that if we did have a major event and

we had to do something like this, that there would be a state of

emergency and much of our personnel cost would be a reimbursable

expense through FEMA, or through other means, as we have seen,

like a September 11 event, so this, of course, would not cover personnel, which would be the bulk of the cost.

This is to do some retrofitting of some existing facilities to make

sure that they could accommodate kids, to buy some of the equipment if we had to have children sleeping there, to make sure we

have sufficient goods there.

We have also worked with public schools and some of the private

sector organizations to see what they have. This obviously would

not be a facility that we would keep on an ongoing basis, but something we could activate to get at the issue you mentioned, which

was a very, very high priority, and a very real issue even on September 11 and the few days afterwards.

Senator LANDRIEU. Along those same subjects, it has come to my

attention that several of the schools in the area have been putting

their own sort of emergency plans together for how they would respond if parents cannot get to pick up the children on time, or

highways are blocked, or bridges, or roads.

It might be for the public schools here to think, if they have not

addressed that—I did not see it outlined in the documents submitted, to address the possibilities of overnights for some children,

which would be safer maybe for them to stay at school than to try

to traverse roads or move across town, whether it is traffic or other

substances or chemicals.

So I do not know if the public school system—perhaps at our

next hearing we could have some testimony from public schools. It

just seems to be on the minds of so many parents, which is really

to think first of our children and then of ourselves, that the public

schools would play a very important part.

But Ms. Kellems, let me ask you this. This list that Senator

DeWine has pointed out, and I appreciate his questions about the

larger ticket items, but this $250 million of primarily equipment,

capital improvements, et cetera, under the plan, who is given the

task—and maybe, Mr. Mayor, you could tell us this—to coordinate

not only the purchasing if this amount of money was provided, but

the management of these resources to make sure the proper equipment was purchased, and the proper training so that everything

could be maximized? Who is tasked, Mr. Mayor, with that responsibility for sort of the accounting and management of this $250 million request? And I know that it goes to each different department,

but is there some——

Mr. WILLIAMS. The overall point of coordination and accountability to me would be Margret, as the Deputy Mayor for Public

Safety. She would be backed up on the accounting and the documentation side by her independent and beloved CFO, Nat Ghandi,

who would do an excellent job, I think, in ensuring that all of the

documentation is there to ensure that we are doing all the crossreferencing between the receipts and expenditures we are making,

so that would all happen.
37

And then John Koskinen, our city administrator, who comes with

a tremendous, wide-ranging experience of Deputy Director of OMB,

and the private sector turn-around specialist, would see that

Margret is getting all the support she needs from all of our agencies, especially our internal support agencies, whether they are personnel, or technology, or procurement.

Senator LANDRIEU. I see that Mr. Rogers has arrived. I do have

one or two questions for you about the regional commission. Thank

you for joining us. But Senator DeWine may have a few additional

questions or comments.

Senator DEWINE. Go ahead. I have a few more.

Senator LANDRIEU. Mr. Rogers, could you just explain—the presentations have been excellent, but several Senators have expressed

to me their concerns, particularly the Senators from the other jurisdictions, Maryland and Virginia, about if our plan is being coordinated with those jurisdictions, and in your role could you please

maybe elaborate on some of the sort of pre-September 11 opportunities, and then post September 11, and what we have either

learned, or some of the challenges that still may be out there based

on interjurisdictional cooperation?

Mr. ROGERS. Well, Senator, the Council of Governments has a

long history in this region of coordinating with the jurisdictions in

the area of mutual aid agreements. There have been longstanding

mutual aid agreements in the region in public safety and fire, police. Particularly there is assistance given when needed.

Just recently we completed an 18-month process of developing a

planning guidance for the health system response to a bio event.

That was spoken to by Director Walks, and that guidance proved,

though it was released, I guess finished on September 6, it served

as an excellent framework for not just the District, but the region

responding to the events dealing with the anthrax issues.

I guess for the first time we can say that not just the local hospitals were talking to the District health department, but the

health officers in Maryland and Virginia and the health officers

committee within COG, which represents the local jurisdictions,

were also participating, as well as the Private Hospital Association

in Virginia and Maryland.

So there is a long history of COG serving as a forum for discussing a number of issues in public safety and health, and emergency management, et cetera.

Our role on September 11 and those events was in working with

our chief administrative officers we reached out through a regional

conference call which has been a COG role generally in planned

events like snow, when we have advance warning, but there was

a conference call for the chief administrative officers, I think the

police chiefs and fire chiefs and others, to talk about the events of

the next day, and the school superintendents, and it was there in

that conference call that the decision was made that the schools

would be closed on the 12th but the Governments would be open

on the 12th, and that was a very important decision.

There is no one in the region, because of our complexity and the

different jurisdictions, that has the authority to say to any one jurisdiction you must do X, Y, or Z, so we have the coordination, and
38

through sharing information generally we are able to come to a decision of what is in the best interest of the region.

Senator LANDRIEU. Well, I can appreciate that, but I would just

suggest that we are all going to probably have to take this to a little higher step, and I think it is a challenge for all regions around

the Nation, because you know, we have all operated on sort of natural disasters, snow or hurricanes or floods or tornadoes, or whatever—we do not have snow in New Orleans, but we do have hurricanes and tornadoes, but there is a different kind of public mentality or panic that sets in when it is an attack and not a natural

occurrence which causes all sorts of other things to trigger, and

that is what we have to be prepared for.

That is what we are preparing for. It is not just your ordinary

emergency. It is not a naturally occurring event, and it is the sense

of, you know, I am willing to follow orders in this situation, but I

want to make sure the orders I am getting are right, the information I am getting is accurate, and the person giving the orders is

somebody that I trust, and it makes it very complicated in a region

where maybe the residents of the District might look to the Mayor,

but the employees of the District look to their own Governors, or

their own elected officials, and then you have got the added complication of having any number of Federal agencies that have their

own hierarchy.

And so I want to urge us, as we review this document and look

at these numbers, to really understand the dynamics of these emergency plans that have to come together in a wholly new way, and

I know there is some discussion, well, but if you decide to close the

schools here, and then Virginia did not close, and Maryland closed,

and then it was—you could cause considerable problems over a

long extended period, and we are struggling with that. I am sure

the Ohio elected officials are having those same discussions.

So on that line, is there any formal regional—is it your organization, or is there a formal, regional commission established to help

sort through some of these questions, or would that be done with

your organization?

Mr. ROGERS. We are beginning that process. We have started

that process. There is a COG task force on homeland security and

emergency response. It includes representation from around the region, and including the Federal Government. The Federal Government in the form of FEMA, the Washington Military District,

OPM, are important players in this process.

It is our hope and expectation that the regional plan will really

be a composite of the local plans. COG’s role is to help fill in the

gaps, to identify the gaps and help fill in the gaps, and that is what

we are working on.

Senator LANDRIEU. Chief, just—and I will turn to Senator

DeWine in a minute, but if you could just comment for the testimony. You have listened to all that has been said. For the police,

what would you list as your number one or number two priorities,

or what you think some of the immediate challenges—I know they

are many, but what would be sort of in your mind, having gone

through the experience of September 11, what would you like to

call to our attention at this point?
39

Mr. RAMSEY. As it relates to the budget request, the need for

equipment is first and foremost. Our first responders do not have

the kind of protective gear they would need to go into a hazardous

situation.

We just recently got 75 protective suits in that we had ordered

for our emergency response team—this was our SWAT team, our

bomb disposal unit and so forth, and they are beginning training,

but the vast majority of our police officers, and we have 3,600

sworn officers, that first responder that gets that initial call, not

quite knowing what it is, needs basic equipment to be able to be

protected if, in fact, there is something chemical or biological that

had been released, and that is very, very important.

From the standpoint of some of the planning efforts, I think the

whole issue around transportation is probably the biggest concern

that I have, and we have done an awful lot in terms of the planning. Dan Tangherlini, who heads our Division of Transportation,

has done an excellent job putting together that particular emergency support function, but it really points to the need for regional

coordination, because in the event of, let us say, an evacuation, all

the traffic cannot stack up at the border.

If you do not have a traffic plan that extends well out beyond

your own borders, certainly outside the beltway, immediately outside the beltway, we are going to have some tremendous problems.

That requires a tremendous amount of coordination between jurisdictions, and you may have just the opposite.

It may not be evacuation. It may be quarantine. Perhaps there

will be situations where people—it is not in anyone’s best interest

that they leave a given area. What do you do with them? These are

people that are just in here to work. Their homes are outside the

District.

Those are very, very critical issues that we are working on to

come up with the kinds of plans, but it requires a great deal of regional involvement, because it affects not only the district, but all

of the surrounding jurisdictions as well.

Senator LANDRIEU. We intend to help you with this equipment

need, but what about your training, just very briefly, in terms of

training for hazmat?

Mr. RAMSEY. Yes, ma’am. Last year, we had a 4-hour block of instruction with our mandatory in-service training, exposing officers

to what is a mass destruction, and kind of a theoretical conversation about what to do in the event of that. Of course, everything

now has taken on added significance. We now in our current block

of 40-hour instruction actually have devoted 8 hours of training to

the responsibility of first responders, and how to quickly identify

a situation that you may come up against, and the kind of things

you should be doing.

So training, in fact with the 75 suits we got today, there is a tremendous amount of training for people to be able to operate with

those things on. One of my assistant chiefs, his son is a member

of the FBI’s HRT team. They have been practicing for sometime

with that emergency gear on, and these are people who train every

single day, are in the best physical shape, and they are still limited

in the amount of time that they can spend actually functioning in
40

that suit, so getting the equipment is one thing. Training is a totally different thing.

Senator LANDRIEU. Do we have a regional training site for police,

or regional training site for firefighters?

Mr. RAMSEY. No, we do not have a regional—we do a lot of training together, but it is not really a situation where there is any kind

of real plan. We do some joint training exercises through COG with

our police chief subcommittee. We have a training subcommittee

and there are some joint trainings that take place, but it is not

nearly as extensive as it should be.

Senator LANDRIEU. Could the fire chief just comment, then I will

turn to Senator DeWine for some closing questions, because we are

going to try to recess close to 4:00.

The same question, fire chief. I know you have a long list, but

what are the two or three things that really jump to your mind

that you would like to share with us about your immediate needs?

Mr. FEW. Well, after September 11, and during September 11, we

understand that when we have the adequate equipment, that we

do a very good job, and equipment is very important to us, and we

know that when we have that equipment we do a good job, and we

do not have a lot of reserve at this point.

Our city is a city that has so many targets in the city that we

have to have the proper equipment, and we realize we cannot depend on a lot of people in the first 24 hours, or 48 hours of an incident, that we have to have that equipment, because we have so

many firefighters that are coming in from off duty. We do not have

one fire service here in D.C., although we do a very good job with

mutual aid. After September 15 we realized we could not count on

a lot of people on mutual aid, so equipment is very important to

us.

I listened to Senator DeWine speak about even pediatrics life

support systems and all, and I realized 6 months ago that that is

important, and we put some of the actual protocols in place, and

I have a lot of equipment on some of our individual trucks, but I

do not have enough, and so that is important.

So equipment is the biggest issue, and then training is another

issue, and although we keep our training up, and even that day we

were having hazmat training on September 11, training is important. It has to be ongoing. That is why you have a quality service

when you have training ongoing.

Senator LANDRIEU. Senator DeWine.

Senator DEWINE. Does anyone on the panel feel comfortable in

regard to talking about Metro’s request? We have a request for

$190.1 million.

Senator LANDRIEU. We are going to have them at the next hearing.

Senator DEWINE. We are going to have them separately, okay.

Let me ask you then, Chief Ramsey. Chief Few has commented

a little bit about my question about pediatrics. I wonder if you have

taken a look at that issue and whether any of the things that you

would be dealing with would be uniquely dealing with children.

Well, let me say that we think it is very important to make sure

that we have BP cuffs that fit pediatrics.
41

I realized that 6 months ago, that we need to change our protocols, and one of the good things about the Mayor’s leadership, and

Dr. Walks spoke about that, has made us actually join at the shoulder, and Dr. Walks and I, we have looked at the medical protocols

on pediatrics. I do have a number of equipment, like I said, in

place, and I am expected to—and if we get this money I want to

make sure that we have pediatric equipment on every piece of

equipment that is necessary, because you do not know which equipment is going to get there first, so we like to see that in our community. With the number of visitors that we have in our community it is absolutely necessary that we do have that type of equipment in place.

Senator DEWINE. Chief Few, thank you very much. Chief

Ramsey.

Mr. RAMSEY. Well, Chief Few and Dr. Walks have been handling

the medical aspect of it, but I do have a concern as it relates to

children, and that would be during an event, having children that

perhaps are in school, day cares, separated from parents, trying to

reunite families. That was a huge issue in New York City, when

we had a chance to visit there. That took a lot of resources, to be

able to make sure that the kids were safe and secure, and somehow

we were able to reunite, and a lot of that with our children and

family services and the police department, we would be working together to make that happen.

Senator DEWINE. I think it is clear from my conversation with

both of you today, and conversations I have had with other officials, and other fire chiefs and fire departments, as well as police,

that what we learned in New York and are continuing to learn,

tragically will be of benefit if we ever have another event like this,

that as you just said, Chief Ramsey, you picked up things from

that trip and the conversations you have had with your colleagues

there.

Dr. WALKS. If I could just add, Senator—excuse me—there are

two points that I think are critical. Pardon me for interrupting,

with respect to children. One we have not touched on today is the

mental health impact on children. Children that go through these

kinds of disasters have a critical need for emotional support.

The other thing is just making sure we assess the environment.

One of the things in the Department of Health’s request is that

kind of technology that will let us really protect the first responders on the scene. We have requested the kind of technology that

lets us safely go to a scene first to assess what chemicals may be

in the air. The fact that someone blows up a bridge does not mean

they do not put other things there besides just the explosion, and

I think that that sort of integrated approach between health and

police and fire is what the District is really modeling here.

Senator DEWINE. Good.

Senator LANDRIEU. Very good point.

Senator DEWINE. Mayor, let me ask one final question, and you

touched on this a little bit, but I do not think I heard you specifically respond to this, and that is, with the decline in tourism, have

you calculated exactly what that cost has been. What is it running

per week or per month to the District? I know it is early in this

and we hope it turns around.
42

Mr. WILLIAMS. Have not been in the CFO job for a little bit, so

my arithmetic may be off, but we are looking at the duration of

this going on as long as 18 months. Right now we are looking at

the impact of $200 million to our District budget.

Senator DEWINE. Excuse me, $200 million——

Mr. WILLIAMS. Dollars to our District budget. That is $750 million overall to the economy.

Senator DEWINE. And that is projected over what period of time?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Pardon me—for 18 months.

Senator DEWINE. What has it been, though? What is the history?

What has it been since September 11? Do you have those figures?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Well, we are tracking that. I am working with our

private businesses and our task force tracking that. Julia Friedman, who is the District’s chief economist, is monitoring that as

well.

Senator DEWINE. Excuse me—you do not see that in revenues,

those figures are not——

Mr. WILLIAMS. $200 million for this period is a loss to the District’s budget. We would otherwise have had this revenue. We will

now not have it. Fortunately, because of the leadership of folks like

Senator Hutchison, and you know as a member of this committee—

well, everybody knows, we have had a very, very conservative approach to our budget over the years. We have built up cash balances. We have built up reserves, and that now turns out is going

to help us in a very, very difficult situation, but we still are in a

difficult spot, even with those reserves.

I just think in making the case that we are going to need to

make to our colleagues, one of the things that we need to look at

is the good, hard data that you gave us today and that we hope

you would continue to give us in regard to the drop in tourism. I

mean, we all see it. Anyone who works around here, we see it every

day. We see it anecdotally, but we do not have the figures, and obviously you are the ones who do have those figures. I would just

state the obvious: it is important for us to continue to have those

figures.

Mr. WILLIAMS. Absolutely, and we work closely with your staff,

and we want to provide the regular flow of information on this as

we get it, absolutely.

Senator DEWINE. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Senator LANDRIEU. Thank you, and I really appreciate your questions and your help, Senator.

Just in closing, let me just follow up on that particular point, and

you know, we have seen such a focus and want to be so helpful to

New York and New Jersey and that whole region. There have been

literally billions of dollars that are leaving Washington to try to

help basically stand up the city and rebuild, and I want to try to

have the opportunity to have some similar focus on D.C., not that

the attack itself was here in the District, because it actually occurred across the river, but the consequences of that have been

devastating to the city, and it is not just any city, it is the Nation’s

Capital, so as the symbol, it has taken on a greater hit than even

cities that sustained themselves.

There have been great losses in Nevada. Senator Reid has spoken to us many, many times, as Senators from that State. There
43

have been great losses in my own State with the experience, because of course New Orleans and many of our communities are

really tourist-related, but to my knowledge no city, except outside

of New York itself, New York and D.C., have been directly affected

for obvious—different, but obvious reasons.

So mayor, I want to pursue that with you, because I think it is

only important to get those facts out there.

Mr. WILLIAMS. If I might say, Senator, I think one thing that—

you know, Speaker Hastert and Majority Leader Daschle were both

good friends of the city, and President Bush certainly has in many

different ways, and I would not presume on them that they want

to keep their facilities closed. I know they do not. I know they want

to get them open as quickly as possible, but when you talk to educators and leaders of trips around the country, one of the big impediments, for example, for bringing school children back to the

District is getting our national symbols open again. I mean, it is

absolutely vital that we do that.

Senator LANDRIEU. Because the city itself depends on those revenues. It really is quite—this emergency—let me just say in conclusion that I really appreciate all of your testimony. Mr. Mayor, in

your opening comments you said, this plan will help us. It galvanizes our resolve to outthink, outsmart, and outplan any terrorists

that might target the District of Columbia, and I hope that we will

keep that goal in mind, and we would like to help you achieve that

goal.

Our next hearing hopefully will be after Thanksgiving, and we

are going to focus the first part of this next hearing on the emergency management plans of the regions and how it relates to the

District, so we may have some regional representatives and invite

some of you back to participate in that discussion to see how the

coordination and planning regionally and training opportunities

that could be shared by the region, and then probably the second

part of the hearing will be about the public schools emergency

management plan and Metro as independent agencies, and we

may, Senator, get into some questions about the schools financial

situation, because the audit will be completed by then and we will

have a little bit more information to go on.

So are there any closing comments?

Thank you all.

[The following questions were not asked at the hearing, but were

submitted to the District for response subsequent to the hearing:]

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY SENATOR MARY L. LANDRIEU

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED TO MAYOR ANTHONY A. WILLIAMS

Question. Given that OMB has only recommended $25 million for the District to

assist with its emergency preparedness, what impact would such a funding level

have on the City’s ability to prepare for a terrorist attack?

Answer. As you know, in its fiscal year 2002 Federal appropriation to the District,

Congress provided the city with approximately $13.5 million for domestic preparedness activities. Our highest priorities at this point are to fund those planning activities, personal protective and emergency response equipment, and training to our

first responders who would be first on the scene to manage a catastrophic event.

With only $25 million, the District will have to forego a number of important

emergency preparedness investments. For example, we will not be funding transportation-related equipment that would facilitate traffic control and management in a

large-scale emergency. We will not be in a position to make critical investments in
44

information technology and telecommunications for local and regional public safety

interoperability. Nor will we be able to fund most of the much-needed health response equipment such as a mobile hospital facility, chemical and biological monitoring and testing equipment, and decontamination and containment space in the

local hospital facilities. The investment in mental health training and outreach in

preparation for future disasters will also not be funded.

Question. In the event that Congress cannot fully fund the District’s $250 million

request, what items in the request are your highest priorities?

Answer. Specialized Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) and hazardous materials response equipment, personal protective gear, detection equipment and supplies, and planning and training for first responders are our highest priorities. We

must ensure both that we have the capacity to respond to emergencies and that the

safety of our first responders is not compromised during that process. Each day, our

police, firefighters, and emergency medical personnel continue to respond to potentially dangerous or life-threatening situations such as suspicious packages and bomb

threats. We can not let them do that without adequate equipment.

Question. The District has created a detailed Emergency Operations Plan outlining the roles of various City agencies during an emergency. Are there any aspects

of the Plan that the District cannot implement without the $250 million in funding?

Answer. The new District Response Plan (DRP) is based on the same format as

the highly successful Federal Response Plan. In it, we have identified fifteen (15)

Emergency Support Functions (ESFs), each responsible for carrying out a unique

emergency function. While the basis for the DRP is solid and the assumptions correct, it is necessary to continually plan, train and exercise the Plan in order for it

to be effective, and this takes a large initial investment in human and physical capital. While a written plan goes a long way in meeting our legal requirements, it

must be exercised. These efforts require continual and ongoing fiscal support for

such items as equipment, overtime (for backfilling positions), supplies, and the actual resources to respond when an actual WMD event occurs. The bottom line is

that the Plan can not be fully and effectively implemented without the funding requested.

Question. Has the city submitted the Emergency Operations Plan for an independent evaluation?

Answer. Yes. The District officially submitted a working copy (DRAFT version 3.0)

of our new District Response Plan (DRP) to the Federal Emergency Management

Agency on October 5, 2001. FEMA’s Readiness, Response and Recovery Directorate

staff thoroughly reviewed the document and provided detailed comments and suggested improvements on November 27, 2001. These comments were reviewed by the

Mayor’s Domestic Preparedness Task Force on December 6 and the modifications/

suggestions are currently being integrated the final version of the Plan. The DC

Emergency Management Agency is working with all of the lead ESF agencies to ensure that the FEMA comments are folded into the current draft (version 8.0). Each

ESF that involves outside Federal cooperation is also being reviewed by the participating Federal agencies in each subcommittee on an ongoing basis. The DRP is expected to be presented to the City Council and published by mid-January, 2002.

Question. What impact have the terrorist attacks of September 11 had on the

economy of the District? Please give specific examples of jobs lost and the employment sector.

Answer. The District anticipates $750 million hit to the economy, which will result in a $100 million loss in fiscal year 2002 revenue. Hotel occupancy was down

more than 50 percent and approximately 3,000 hotel and restaurant workers lost

their jobs. In addition, 50,000 tourism jobs across the Washington metropolitan region are in jeopardy.

Question. What adjustments is the city making to its financial plan in fiscal year

2002 and beyond considering the economic slowdown?

Answer. We are monitoring the economic conditions of the District and will adjust

the financial plan as necessary. The District is facing real challenges because of the

national economic slowdown, the related increase in unemployment and the new security requirements resulting from September 11. We are determining the magnitude of the spending pressures and agencies have begun to identify areas where

spending can be cut and savings can be achieved.

Revenues drive the financial plan and will be revised in the spring. At that time,

we will know if, and/or how much, programs will have to be reduced. Though these

are austere times, the District will maintain financial integrity and live within the

constraints of the budget.

Question. What steps are being taken to ensure that schools and major employers

emergency operations planning is coordinated?
45

Answer. The Superintendent of the DC Public Schools is a standing member of

the Mayor’s Domestic Preparedness Task Force and is invited to participate in all

of the meetings and proceedings of this body. The DC Emergency Management

Agency is also working with the schools in developing a hazard identification workbook. EMA has provided over 1,000 ‘‘Master of Disasters’’ curriculum kits, and provided a free tone-alert weather radio to each DC public school. In addition, the DC

Emergency Management Agency has been working with the DC Consortium of Colleges and Universities (representing 12 colleges and universities with a daily population of nearly 150,000 students/staff) to integrate the Consortium as a ‘‘one-stop

shop’’ in its emergency notification protocol. Various meetings with the Consortium

have occurred since September 11.

Additionally, the Task Force and its various subcommittees have been working

with the major employers in the District, with the largest being the Federal Government in coordinating emergency response and notification efforts. Most recently,

DCEMA and the Mayor’s Office has instituted a direct hotline to the Federal Office

of Personnel Management (OPM) to coordinate activities such as potential evacuations, government shutdown procedures and overall information sharing before,

during and after a major emergency. Finally, DCEMA has begun initial discussions

with the major private employers through organizations such as the Building Operators and Managers Association (BOMA) in developing coordinated building evacuation procedures that can be implemented not only during terrorist threats, but for

any disaster event.

Question. Do employers, Federal and private, notify the city and the school system

when they decide to close in the event of an emergency? What kind of notification

system is in place for when schools close due to an emergency?

Answer. Refer to the reply to previous question.

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED TO DEPUTY MAYOR MARGRET KELLUMS

Question. The District has requested a great deal of funding for training—particularly for the Fire/EMS Department and the Police Department. Training is crucial

to effective implementation of an Emergency Operations Plan. Can the District utilize training facilities in the surrounding jurisdictions in Maryland and Virginia? Is

any training available through the Federal Government?

Answer. Much of the training contemplated in the District’s request is provided

at no charge by the Federal Government. As we cycle large numbers of staff through

training programs, it will be necessary to maintain our baseline staffing levels to

ensure that service delivery does not suffer. In order to accomplish both of these

goals—training and maintenance of baseline staffing levels—we must backfill using

overtime. Thus, much of the District’s request represents the cost of allowing employees to attend training at existing facilities. We are currently investigating training opportunities in the surrounding jurisdictions as well. Not only do we intend to

take full advantage of the local and State-level opportunities, we are planning to

engage in regional training and exercises with the public safety agencies in the surrounding jurisdictions.

Question. The City has requested $867,306 for the Department of Consumer and

Regulatory Affairs. Please describe what this Department’s role would be in a terrorist attack.

Answer. The Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs (DCRA) is the regulatory agency responsible for ensuring the structural integrity of buildings. Although

DCRA would not be a first responder in the event of a terrorist attack, they would

be required in certain cases to visit disaster scenes and assess the structural integrity of buildings. The budget request for DCRA would be to cover the necessary

equipment that they would need, including for example, self contained breathing apparatus to permit them to enter a hazardous scenes. The remainder of the costs are

for specialized training and supplies for addressing the extraordinary circumstances

of a terrorist attack for which they are not currently equipped.

Question. The City has requested $160,000 for the Department of Parks and

Recreation. Please describe what this Department’s role would be in a terrorist attack.

Answer. The Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) is responsible for running neighborhood-based programs and recreational facilities throughout the city. In

the event of a terrorist attack or other cataclysmic emergency, the community facilities would be utilized as shelters or staging facilities. The budget for DPR would

prepare the staff with the training and equipment they require to support our emergency response. For example, the funding request for DPR included 800 MHz radios
46

to ensure that appropriate communications devices would be in place in the event

of an emergency.

Question. The District of Columbia Public Schools have requested over $78 million

in funding for security equipment and facilities upgrades—more than the combined

requests of the Fire/EMS Department, the Metropolitan Police Department, the Division of Transportation, the Department of Health, and the Chief Medical Examiner’s office. In the draft Emergency Response plan, however, DCPS’s role is limited

to providing school buses for transportation and temporary shelter at school facilities for the displaced families as well as giving disaster response training to students. Please explain how these activities justify a $78 million request.

Answer. The District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) request represents an investment in prevention, not necessarily response. This large request was to enhance

security technology such as x-ray machines at every school, as well as physical enhancements to building exteriors. You will note that this is consistent with the security request made by the Office of Property Management for a number of the District’s largest government facilities. We considered it important to ensure the safety

of the children in all of our schools.

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED TO CHIEF RONNIE FEW

Question. The District has requested $6.6 million for various Fire/EMS vehicles:

12 ambulances, 6 fire engines, 3 trucks, a Hazmat command vehicle, 6 response

cars, and other motor vehicles. Some argue that this equipment could have, or

should have, been purchased as part of the Department’s normal operations and replacement schedule. Does the Department plan to use these vehicles to replace those

that are already in service? If so, why didn’t the Department make these purchases

sooner?

Answer. The Fire/EMS department does have a regular fleet maintenance program through which it regularly replaces its fleet. The vehicles that we have requested will give us the capability of expanding our resources, when necessary, in

the event of a major catastrophe. The events of September 11 demonstrate the need

for a surplus number of trucks for cataclysmic events. In the same way that the

Department of Health needs a ‘‘surge capacity’’ in the event of an event that impacts

large number of citizens, so too does the Fire Department. For example, in a largescale disaster, we must transport extraordinary numbers of staff to the scene of the

disaster, which we cannot do with only existing resources even including our reserve

equipment. This request will be used to supplement, not supplant, our reserve replacement program.

In addition, some of the vehicles we have requested are specialized equipment,

such as the Mass Casualty Unit, that will be needed in the event of a major disaster. This unit will also be used on a more frequent basis to supplement our response to localized disasters, such as bus accidents, small building collapses, and

multiple shootings. The vehicles in the emergency preparedness request therefore

represent a net gain to the Department. We will continue our current fleet replacement schedule as planned.

Question. The Fire/EMS Department has requested a large amount of specialized

Hazmat equipment. Please describe in detail the Department’s plans for deploying

these resources. Does the Department play to equip every fire fighter and EMT with

this equipment and, if so, does it have the storage facilities in all of the fire and

EMS stations to hold this equipment until it is needed?

Answer. Hazmat protective gear is classified as Level A, B, & C, with Level A

offering the highest level of protection. Level A is an encapsulating suit with its own

air supply. Level A equipment will be placed in four specialized units, in four quadrants of the city (Engines 12, 15, 2, and 24). The rest of the Hazmat equipment will

be used to upgrade the protective gear of the remainder of our providers. All front

line EMS and firefighting units will be issued personnel protective clothing and SelfContained Breathing Apparatus (SCBA), which will outfit our providers to Level B.

(All firefighters currently have SCBAs, but some of the funds will be used to purchase reserve equipment). This equipment will be carried on the apparatus and will

be available for immediate use. At present, protection for EMS providers is at a

level C, meaning that they have basic chemical protective clothing and filter masks.

Although this offers some protection, it is not adequate protection for emergency

medical workers who will certainly be in the center of the most horrific disasters.
47

QUESTION SUBMITTED TO CHIEF CHARLES H. RAMSEY

Question. The Metropolitan Police Department has requested funds to upgrade its

protective equipment. How are you planning to distribute this equipment in an

emergency? Do you plan to equip every officer or every patrol car with this protective gear?

Answer. New gas masks are on order for all members of the Department. These

new masks will be equipped with both chemical-biological and chemical munitions

filters. The masks will be distributed immediately upon receipt to all sworn and civilian members of the Department as part of their issued equipment, i.e., the members have the masks available for immediate use as part of their regular equipment.

Initially, each Patrol Service Area vehicle will be equipped with Level C protective

equipment. This includes the Tyvek suit, boots and gloves. One suit, pair of boots,

and pair of gloves in each size (S-M-L-XL) will be maintained in the vehicle, with

a replacement inventory maintained by the Special Operations Division. This equipment will be immediately available for use in the event of an emergency.

Ultimately, and as funding becomes available, it is the Department’s intent to

equip each sworn member with personal Level C protective equipment that will be

carried and maintained with their issued equipment.

Seventy-five (75) sets of Level B protective equipment have been issued to specially trained personnel assigned to the Special Operations and Forensic Services

Divisions. Level B equipment is the same as Level C, with the addition of an external SCBA worn on the outside of the Tyvek suit. The equipment is issued to and

maintained at the members’ duty station and is immediately available for use in

the event of an emergency.

All members of the Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit are equipped with Level

A protective equipment. Level A includes a sealed suit, with an internal SCBA unit.

The equipment is also maintained at the members’ duty station and is immediately

available for use.

QUESTION SUBMITTED TO DR. IVAN C. A. WALKS

Question. The Department of Health and its staff have done extraordinary work

during the ongoing anthrax crisis in the City. The City’s emergency preparedness

request for DOH was put together before the scope of the attacks was known. Given

the experience over the last several weeks, is the current request still valid in the

wake of the anthrax attacks?

Answer. Our request included over $23 million for Department of Health resources, including on-site response equipment, a limited stock of pharmaceuticals,

and containment facilities, among other things. The recent anthrax attacks demonstrated that in addition to supplies and equipment, vast amounts of human resources are necessary in the event of a biological incident. Should another event like

the recent anthrax attack occurs, the District’s challenge will be to identify similar

levels of personnel to support an operation. We are reluctant, however, to include

in a request for one-time funding, resources such as personal services, which would

impose an ongoing cost on the city that we may not be able to support in out years.

Thus, we think that the submission we made is still valid.

I hope these responses answer the questions you have posed. Please fell free to

contact me if you should require additional information.

CONCLUSION OF HEARING

Senator LANDRIEU. The hearing is recessed.

[Whereupon, at 12:04 p.m., Wednesday, November 14, the hearing was concluded, and the subcommittee was recessed, to reconvene subject to the call of the Chair.]

Æ