U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

68–547 DTP WASHINGTON : 2001

DOMESTIC PREPAREDNESS AGAINST TERRORISM:

HOW READY ARE WE?

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY,

VETERANS AFFAIRS, AND INTERNATIONAL

RELATIONS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

MARCH 27, 2000

Serial No. 106–175

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house

http://www.house.gov/reform

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

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: (202) 512–1800 Fax: (202) 512–2250

Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402–0001

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York

CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

STEPHEN HORN, California

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia

DAVID M. MCINTOSH, Indiana

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

MARSHALL ‘‘MARK’’ SANFORD, South

Carolina

BOB BARR, Georgia

DAN MILLER, Florida

ASA HUTCHINSON, Arkansas

LEE TERRY, Nebraska

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois

GREG WALDEN, Oregon

DOUG OSE, California

PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin

HELEN CHENOWETH-HAGE, Idaho

DAVID VITTER, Louisiana

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

ROBERT E. WISE, JR., West Virginia

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,

DC

CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

JIM TURNER, Texas

THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine

HAROLD E. FORD, JR., Tennessee

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

KEVIN BINGER, Staff Director

DANIEL R. MOLL, Deputy Staff Director

DAVID A. KASS, Deputy Counsel and Parliamentarian

LISA SMITH ARAFUNE, Chief Clerk

PHIL SCHILIRO, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, VETERANS AFFAIRS, AND INTERNATIONAL

RELATIONS

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut, Chairman

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

DAVID M. MCINTOSH, Indiana

MARSHALL ‘‘MARK’’ SANFORD, South

Carolina

LEE TERRY, Nebraska

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois

HELEN CHENOWETH-HAGE, Idaho

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois

TOM LANTOS, California

ROBERT E. WISE, JR., West Virginia

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois

EX OFFICIO

DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

LAWRENCE J. HALLORAN, Staff Director and Counsel

JASON CHUNG, Clerk

DAVID RAPALLO, Minority Counsel

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on March 27, 2000 ............................................................................ 1

Statement of:

Baughman, Bruce, Director, Operations and Planning Division, Response

and Recovery Directorate, FEMA ................................................................ 98

Burnham, Robert, Section Chief, FBI Domestic Terrorism/Counter-Terrorism Planning Section .................................................................................... 107

Cugno, General William, adjutant general, Connecticut National Guard ... 59

DeLauro, Hon. Rosa, a Representative in Congress from the State of

Connecticut .................................................................................................... 8

Garcia, Dr. Joxel, commissioner, Department of Public Health ................... 74

Gecewicz, Thomas E., director of public health, city of Bridgeport .............. 31

Halaby, Kenneth, first selectman, town of Trumbull .................................... 18

Lawlor, Brigadier General Bruce, U.S. Army Commander ........................... 120

Lee, Dr. Henry C., commissioner, Department of Public Safety .................. 66

Maglione, Michael, fire chief, city of Bridgeport ............................................ 23

Moore, Gary, Director, Division of Emergency Readiness and Operations . 131

Murphy, Dennis, chief administrative officer, city of Bridgeport ................. 19

Rocque, Arthur, Jr., commissioner, Department of Environmental Protection ................................................................................................................. 85

Sandford, Wayne, Connecticut representative, New England Fire Chiefs .. 89

Stroech, Kenneth, Deputy Emergency Coordinator, Chemical Emergency

Preparedness & Prevention Office, U.S. Environmental Protection

Agency ............................................................................................................ 140

Torres, Hector, police chief, city of Bridgeport ............................................... 20

Wiltse, John T., director, Connecticut Office of Emergency Management .. 10

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Baughman, Bruce, Director, Operations and Planning Division, Response

and Recovery Directorate, FEMA, prepared statement of ......................... 101

Burnham, Robert, Section Chief, FBI Domestic Terrorism/Counter-Terrorism Planning Section, prepared statement of ............................................. 110

Cugno, General William, adjutant general, Connecticut National Guard,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 62

Garcia, Dr. Joxel, commissioner, Department of Public Health, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 76

Gecewicz, Thomas E., director of public health, city of Bridgeport, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 33

Lawlor, Brigadier General Bruce, U.S. Army Commander, prepared statement of ........................................................................................................... 123

Lee, Dr. Henry C., commissioner, Department of Public Safety, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 68

Maglione, Michael, fire chief, city of Bridgeport, prepared statement of .... 25

Moore, Gary, Director, Division of Emergency Readiness and Operations,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 133

Rocque, Arthur, Jr., commissioner, Department of Environmental Protection, prepared statement of .......................................................................... 86

Shays, Hon. Christopher, a Representative in Congress from the State

of Connecticut, prepared statement of ........................................................ 3

Stroech, Kenneth, Deputy Emergency Coordinator, Chemical Emergency

Preparedness & Prevention Office, U.S. Environmental Protection

Agency, prepared statement of .................................................................... 143

Tierney, Hon. John F., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Massachusetts, prepared statement of ................................................... 6

Torres, Hector, police chief, city of Bridgeport, prepared statement of ....... 22

Page

IV

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by—Continued

Wiltse, John T., director, Connecticut Office of Emergency Management,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 12

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DOMESTIC PREPAREDNESS AGAINST

TERRORISM: HOW READY ARE WE?

MONDAY, MARCH 27, 2000

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, VETERANS

AFFAIRS, AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM, Stratford, CT.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., at the

Stratford Armory, 63 Armory Road, Stratford, CT, Hon. Christopher Shays (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Shays and Tierney.

Also present: Representative DeLauro.

Staff present: Lawrence Halloran, staff director and counsel; Vincent Chase, chief investigator; Robert Newman, professional staff

member; Jason Chung, clerk; and David Rapallo, minority counsel.

Mr. SHAYS. I’d like to call this hearing to order and welcome our

witnesses and our guests. Our collective duty to protect public safety and national security demands we ask ‘‘How ready are we to

confront the changing face of modern terrorism?’’ The answer, we

are more prepared today than yesterday, thanks, in part, to the

skill and dedication of the witnesses we will hear this morning.

But terrorism challenges rational people to come to grips with irrational, to think about the unthinkable. And it compels local,

State and national leaders to commit to and rely upon unprecedented levels of mutual assistance and cooperation in the event of

a terrorist incident. These are challenges we are not yet fully prepared to meet.

Last Friday’s exercise brought that lesson home as local police,

fire and emergency medical personnel worked through a fictional,

but all too plausible, scenario of a chemical-laced pipe bomb explosion on an Amtrak train. They learned what types of equipment,

training and planning are needed to improve existing response capabilities.

At the same time, we all learned a sobering truth. Without the

proper local preparations and outside support, first responders to

a chemical or a biological incident scene inevitably become the second wave of victims.

Facing that harsh reality, mayors, Governors, Congress and the

President are asking the same questions. What do local responders

need to function and survive as our first line of defense against terrorism? What additional capabilities should reside at the State and

national levels to be brought to bear in support of local officials

when needed?

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Answers required close calibration of local, State and Federal interests and authority. It is a difficult and potentially costly balance

to strike. But, given that time and distance between a terrorist attack and effective response are measured in human lives, the balance must be found and funded.

Since 1997, the Federal Government has spent several billion

dollars on domestic preparedness programs. Last year, the congressional mandated Advisory Panel to Assess Domestic Response Capabilities for Terrorism Involving Weapons of Mass Destruction reported frustration and confusion among local and State officials

trying to navigate a busy bureaucratic menu of Federal counter-terrorism agencies and programs. The Advisory Panel also observed a

lack of consensus on the nature and extent of the domestic terrorism threat, compounding the difficulty of needs assessments and

budget planning.

Today, the subcommittee came to Connecticut to assess the impact of Federal programs to combat terrorism and to ask what

needs to be done to improve their focus, their reach and their effectiveness.

Thanks to the efforts of the Connecticut Office of Emergency

Management, the Connecticut Military Department and the city of

Bridgeport in planning and conducting last Friday’s exercise, and

I might say funding it as well, witnesses this morning are able to

address our questions with recent experiences and fresh insights.

The subcommittee is grateful for the time and expertise our witnesses bring to these important discussions and we look forward to

their testimony.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Christopher Shays follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. At this time, I’d like to call on my colleague, Mr.

Tierney, if he’d like to make a statement.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And good

morning, everyone. Let me also welcome all of the witnesses that

are here this morning, as well as the local, State and Federal officials who took part in the exercise on Friday, which I understand

was quite an event. I’m glad you could all be with us.

I also want to thank the Connecticut National Guard for organizing the exercise and hosting the hearing today here at the Armory.

We’re scheduled to have another hearing up in my district probably

next month and I hope we can offer as much hospitality and do as

good a job up there as you’ve done for us.

Terrorism is obviously a concern for all of our cities and towns

because it will require a response by local resources first. Police departments, fire departments, hospitals, all of these local entities

will be called upon to respond. And we have to make sure that we

have quick and effective response.

In the case of a potentially catastrophic event, however, there are

additional concerns that must be addressed. First, how well are we

training and equipping ourselves for a future incident? And, second, if an incident occurs, have we thought through the processes

and procedures of actions so we know how to respond?

On the first question, preparation for this kind of incident requires us to examine the possible threats, determine the risk of

various scenarios and transform that threat/risk assessment into

concrete priorities for equipment, training and research.

On the second question, a procedure for action requires that we

know who to call, when to call them and what to ask for when we

reach them.

With both of these efforts, there are many unknowns and

unquantifiables. There are also uncertainties about the extent to

which Federal funding should be directed toward enhancing local

capabilities, preparing Federal response mechanisms or some combination of both.

I hope when we return to Washington, Mr. Chairman, that we’ll

have some clear ideas about this situation on our own.

And finally, I want to thank Chairman Shays for his dedication

and perseverance on this issue. I have to tell you he’s held five

hearings like this, I believe, last year on the topic and I think he’s

had three so far this year. He’s demonstrated his commitment to

streamlining Federal programs so they’ll be much more coordinated, more efficient and ultimately more helpful to the local responders who rely on them.

And I look forward to the hearing this morning. I just also want

to close by noting the number of National Guardsmen from Massachusetts that are here, Mr. Chairman, and know that they are

lending their expertise to the situation. We’re proud and thoughtful

to have them here.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Hon. John F. Tierney follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. I’d like to thank my colleague as well for his incredible support in this committee. It’s really a team effort. And the

record will note that Massachusetts is very important to Connecticut.

Now I’d like to call on my colleague, Rosa DeLauro, a partner

and wonderful friend in so many efforts in Congress. And we are

in your district and it’s wonderful to be here.

STATEMENT OF HON. ROSA DeLAURO, A REPRESENTATIVE IN

CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CONNECTICUT

Mrs. DELAURO. Thanks so much. I, too, want to welcome everyone here today. And I thank my colleague, Congressman Shays, for

holding this important hearing and associate myself with my comments—with the comments of my colleague from Massachusetts,

John Tierney, in mentioning Congressman Shays’ tenacity and

doggedness and commitment to this issue.

Let me also welcome Congressman Tierney to Stratford and to

the Third Congressional District of Connecticut. We’re grateful for

the assistance of our Massachusetts brethren. And we’re going to

do all that we can to get one of these teams in the State of Connecticut here, John.

Let me thank the members of the panel who are here with us

today and for your expert testimony. Also, to all the personnel here

this morning who took us through the various kinds of efforts that

you are making and the description of the equipment that you’re

using and helping us to try to understand exactly what happens

here on the ground.

We are approaching the 5-year anniversary of the bombing of the

Alfred Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. We passed the

7-year mark of the attack on the World Trade Center. I dare say

that these tragedies have served as a wake-up call to all Americans

that terrorism was no longer just in other countries and far-off

places like the Middle East or Northern Ireland, that we also have

terrorism here. We’ve learned that it’s not only bred abroad but can

develop right here at home.

And no one wants to over-excite or to frighten the public with

concerns about attacks on their workplaces or homes. We don’t

want to give terrorists a victory of greatly altering our lives by

causing us to live in fear. But we need to be prepared. But the vigilance doesn’t mean that we shutter our windows against the outside world. What we’re looking at is a prudent and an intelligent

approach.

From threats from abroad, we must remain steeled against those

who wish us ill, prepared to meet in force in kind. And, similarly,

we need to recognize and monitor domestic threats. But keeping in

mind that every act cannot be foreseen and prevented, we need to

prepare and to ensure that the men and women who would be the

first on the scene are equipped with every tool that they need and

expertly trained in how to be able to use them.

We’ve had some foresight of good Senators, Sam Nunn, Richard

Lugar, in helping to try to provide some resources to be able to

bear on the enhanced capability of Federal, State and local emergency responses in the case of terrorist incidents.

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With a $10 billion Federal spending on counter-terrorism—last

year it reached $10 billion, enabling us to stockpile antidotes

against bio-terrorism, to make grants for the purchase of equipment and to train local law enforcement and other first responders.

The questions that the panelers will undertake today are the efforts that we—reaching those of us who are here on the ground. I

think that, as has been said, that the weekend’s exercise showed

us in many cases that it’s not quickly evident that an incident may

be a biological attack and that the first people on the scene are always going to be our police, our firefighters and other emergency

personnel. And, quite frankly, we want to make sure that they

have the protection that they need and can deal with what is at

the scene and the institutions, like our hospitals, are also equipped

to deal with these kinds of things so that, in fact, the whole system

just doesn’t shut down when something like this could potentially

occur.

But are the efforts reaching us here on the ground? Are they effective? How can we better ensure that we’re getting the tools that

we need and the training and support to make us responsive to

these acts of terrorism?

The one thing as I was going through these, the various demonstrations, it occurred to me as to what extent the vast realm of

our technology research, whether it is within the Federal Government’s purview, within the military or whether it is in our academic institutions around the country and right here in our State,

to what extent is the level of that research and that expertise being

brought to bear on this issue in terms of the kinds of technology

that we can employ?

Robotics, for instance. We saw some demonstration of that, in

which you can deploy the robot and save on—lives, loss of lives

with personnel and an accurate indication of what the circumstances within whether it’s a Federal building that may have

been bombed or some other kind of effort.

And I think that that’s something that we ought to ask here and

that we ought to try to pursue.

I have gone on long enough as an opening statement for all of

us. I look forward to the testimony of our witnesses here this morning and again say thank you to my colleague, Chris Shays, for

bringing us all here this morning.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank the young lady. And I do know that you have

certain obligations later that you need to go to. So it’s just appreciated very much that you’re here to start us off.

We are going to have a short presentation by John Wiltse, the

director of the Connecticut Office of Emergency Management, and

Colonel David Gavigan.

I would just like to thank the Office of Emergency Management

because they funded the process that you all went through on Friday. And I think it cost well over $20,000. And so that’s very appreciated. And I think it was very useful and I know it will bear

a lot of fruit.

Mr. Wiltse.

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STATEMENT OF JOHN T. WILTSE, DIRECTOR, CONNECTICUT

OFFICE OF EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT

Mr. WILTSE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Tierney, Mrs.

DeLauro, I am John Wiltse, director of the Office of Emergency

Management. It is certainly an honor for me to appear before you.

I am joined, as the chairman indicated, by Colonel David Gavigan,

a terrorism preparedness consultant and our lead facilitator for the

Park City response exercise.

We’d like to give you a brief overview of the exercise and, most

importantly, focus on some of the lessons learned. The exercise purpose is really to assess and to identify. As the chairman indicated,

this exercise was designed to be incorporated into today’s hearing.

The structure and design. We had substantial and enthusiastic

participation from representatives from over 40 agencies. And we’re

extremely pleased with that. The players were grouped into seven

functional areas, including emergency management, health, law enforcement, the city of Bridgeport Emergency Operations Center,

first responders and a table utilized to represent a unified command system. Information was given as the scenario unfolded and

the tables were able to consult with each other during the exercise.

The chairman summarized a little bit about the scenario. I’d just

like to highlight some items. We did simulate a high-speed—the

new high-speed Accela train, Amtrak service from Boston to Washington, DC. The train reported an explosion just outside of Bridgeport’s Water Street station and made an emergency stop.

The explosion produced 30 fatalities and dozens of more injuries

which strained area hospitals, which were already at capacity with

a spring flu.

However, the real threat did not materialize for the players until

a little later in the scenario when victims began to seek treatment

for blister and respiratory ailments. This led players to correctly

conclude that this was an act of terrorism utilizing a mustard

chemical agent which began to impact the entire Connecticut medical system.

And now some lessons learned. First of all, there is a clear lack

of available portable equipment for use at the scene by first responders. Detection and personal protective gear is not available

for most fire and law enforcement personnel. Without this good

chemical detection equipment, first responders themselves became

casualties during this exercise. Health personnel faced the very

same issues. There’s a general inability to sustain hospital operations in a chemical or biological environment.

And although it was a tabletop exercise, all the agencies recognized that they would not be able to have communicated effectively

in the field because of a lack of a centralized and expandable radio

system.

Detection and decontamination. There was a fair amount of confusion and problems in the exercise in correctly detecting and, most

importantly, confirming the potential agent. There’s a clear lack of

effective decontamination systems for mass casualties in our health

communities. Both medical facilities and first responder agencies

simply do not have the equipment and facilities to accomplish this.

Because of this lack of detection and decontamination capabilities,

11

area hospitals did allow their environments to become contaminated during the exercise.

Training and education. Although the exercise was very well received, all the functional areas indicated they would benefit from

additional exercises. And we certainly hope to do that. Unfortunately, exercise resources are very limited, especially for municipalities.

First responders also have a great difficulty attending the wide

variety of out-of-state terrorism training currently available, mainly because their jobs have to be back-filled on the front lines of

their fire and police stations.

Agency roles and coordination. Additional exercising will certainly help us address this area. But there are a variety of different

agencies and roles. There’s a general need for more education and

interagency planning to help simplify the response.

Players did recognize a duplication of efforts as an example in

the hazardous material identification area. In short, the incident

commander is looking for a centralized and needs a centralized

process to obtain resources, one that already exists, for example,

with the Federal response plan.

There’s also a recognition that we must begin to look at developing regional capabilities, especially here in Connecticut where we

do not have strong county governments.

In summary, although we saw with this exercise on the front

lines we have very capable agencies and personnel at local and

State levels, there are certainly insufficient resources and they are

not filtering down to the front lines. We must work more closely

together to define our roles and missions at all levels of government, improve interagency planning and education and look toward

regionalization.

Mr. Chairman, if you have no questions, this concludes our presentation.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Wiltse follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much.

We’re going to be swearing in our witnesses. And just to acknowledge and point out that we’re having three panels. It’s probably the largest number of people per panel that I’ve ever had in

any of my hearings. We’re going to do local, then we’re going to do

State and then we’re going to do Federal. It’s probably going to necessitate our doing a lot more listening than asking questions. But

we’ll just see how it goes. We’re very excited about the day and

really appreciate all the participants.

We have our witnesses. And then I’ll ask them to stand. But let

me just introduce them. We have Dennis Murphy, the Chief Administrative Officer for the city of Bridgeport.

Dennis, nice to have you here.

Accompanied by Mr. Scott Appleby, Emergency Management Director, city of Bridgeport.

We have the Honorable Kenneth Halaby, the first selectman,

town of Trumbull.

Ken, great to have you.

And we have Chief Hector Torres, Police Department, city of

Bridgeport.

Chief, it’s always great to have you here.

And then we have Chief Michael Maglione, fire department, city

of Bridgeport.

Wonderful to have you here as well, Chief. And appreciate all

that you all did on Friday.

And then we have Mr. Thomas Gecewicz—Gecewicz. I’m not saying it correctly. Did I say it right the second time?

Mr. GECEWICZ. Gecewicz, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. Gecewicz. Thank you, sir. Director, Health Department, city of Bridgeport. And you’re doing a great job in a very difficult position.

Accompanied by Ms. Jane Winters, emergency medical service coordinator—excuse me. Accompanied by Mr. Stephen Carden, joint

hospital coordinator, Bridgeport Hospital, and Ms. Jane Winters—

thank you—emergency medical service coordinator, St. Vincent’s

Medical Center.

If you would, I would invite you to stand. We swear all our witnesses in. The only one who has ever gotten away with not being

sworn in was Senator Byrd when he came in. Big surprise. Right?

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

Note for the record that all our witnesses responded in the affirmative.

And quickly, to get some housekeeping out of the way, I ask

unanimous consent that all members of the subcommittee be permitted to place an opening statement in the record and the record

remain open for 3 days for that purpose. And without objection, so

ordered.

I ask for the unanimous consent that all witnesses be permitted

to include their written statement in the record. And without objection, so ordered.

Our practice is to give 5 minutes and then roll over for another

5. But—we’ll roll over, but if we could—if you’re—we’re hoping you

18

can close by 5 minutes. But if you have—need a minute or two

more, that’s fine.

Just paying respect to our chief elected official, I’m going to have

Mr. Halaby—you’re going to open us up. And then I’ll call on Dennis Murphy, the Chief Administrator.

STATEMENT OF KENNETH HALABY, FIRST SELECTMAN, TOWN

OF TRUMBULL

Mr. HALABY. Thank you, Chairman Shays and members of the

panel. It’s a pleasure to be here with you today.

Mr. SHAYS. Ken, I’m going to ask you to move the mic in front

of you a little more.

Mr. HALABY. A little bit more?

Mr. SHAYS. This way.

Mr. HALABY. This way. OK.

Mr. SHAYS. Is that all right?

Mr. HALABY. That’s fine.

Mr. SHAYS. OK.

Mr. HALABY. I’d like to thank you, Chairman Shays, and your

panel for putting together that wonderful symposium that was

sponsored by the Connecticut Office of Emergency Management,

the State Military Department and the city of Bridgeport.

Mr. SHAYS. Ken, I’m really sorry. I’m going to ask that the mic

be tipped down and be——

Mr. HALABY. Tipped down. OK.

Mr. SHAYS. Yes.

Mr. HALABY. Is that better?

Mr. SHAYS. Yes.

Mr. HALABY. Closer?

Mr. SHAYS. Tilt it like this a little bit so——

Mr. HALABY. All righty. Is that better?

Mr. SHAYS. Good. Is that all right?

Mr. HALABY. That’s fine.

Mr. SHAYS. Good. Thank you.

Mr. HALABY. OK. Trumbull, as you know, is a small town adjoining the city of Bridgeport. But we did not take this exercise lightly.

We had 14 representatives at the tabletop from our police department, fire department, EMS, fire marshals, fire chiefs, our Health

Department and a school principal and a school officer, along with

some of our security guards.

It was a wonderful opportunity for us to learn more about the

needs of our community and our surrounding cities in the Greater

Bridgeport area.

I will not reiterate the need that has already been expressed in

the previous testimony by other people here. But I would just like

to emphasize after the tabletop exercise, we all went back to our

Town Hall and felt that the greatest need was training. A town like

Trumbull of 33,500 doesn’t have the finances or wherewithal to get

the expert training needed to respond as effectively as we would

like to.

Along with that, of course, comes the necessary personal protective equipment which we found was in need for such a disaster

that may or may not occur and, also, funding for the necessary deVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:04 May 24, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00022 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\68547.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
19

tection equipment and other equipment needed in these disaster

situations.

The interdisciplinary training was thought to be of critical importance and the need to have current lists of who to call, when to

call, from all levels so that if we had to be first responders within

our own town or, in fact, backups to our sister city of Bridgeport

wherein they might ask us to have our Public Works Department

come in to set up roadblocks, if the police who already had roadblocks set up were—needed to be relieved of their duties, if they

needed extra assistance for a command center, which we do have

the capability of in our town with generators and backup equipment. We have a great media center with all the necessary equipment there.

We would stand ready to help, if there was an overflow in the

hospitals, to set up such emergency needs through the Red Cross

in all of our schools. And we stand ready to help a city like Bridgeport wherever needed in such a disaster.

In terms of our own needs, we are spread out. We’re a small

town. And the crises of hitting a big building outside of our schools

or our small Town Hall are not quite of the same magnitude as

what we had experienced when the Bridgeport case was presented

to us.

However, we cannot take anything for granted. Towns small or

large can be hit. And we do need the training, the equipment and

the guidance from those who are in much better positions than ourselves to help better prepare us because as a small town we just

do not have the funds to do it ourselves.

I think, Mr. Chairman, that pretty well sums up my presentation.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. We may have a question, too, to ask you.

Mr. HALABY. Sure.

Mr. SHAYS. At this time, we will ask—Mr. Murphy, it’s wonderful

to have you here. And thank you.

STATEMENT OF DENNIS MURPHY, CHIEF ADMINISTRATIVE

OFFICER, CITY OF BRIDGEPORT

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you, Congressman. And on behalf of Mayor

Ganim, who was unable to be here, he wishes to express his deep

gratitude to you and to the committee members for focusing on this

very important issue.

There are—there is testimony submitted by Mayor Ganim that

you have. I will simply summarize. We will have, as you know, the

fire chief, police chief, health director also testify in terms of their

areas of expertise.

But there are a couple of issues that I would suggest need consideration. It’s been pointed out that a city like Bridgeport would

be the first responder to an act of terrorism. And on Friday, the

exercise, one thing we learned was once a toxic substance was identified and released, that Bridgeport did not have the technical capacity in the haz/mat area to get sufficient empirical information

on the spreading of this toxic substance to make those initial decisions. The decisions of sending children home from schools, evacuating neighborhoods, need to be made on a local level within the

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first hour, the first 2 hours, of course, depending on the nature of

the episode.

The haz/mat, Fairfield County Haz/Mat, that we cooperate with

tremendously and who do tremendous work simply can’t respond in

that quick a time. And perhaps if these episodes occur, they may

be drawn elsewhere. So I—those decisions that we need to make

on a local level, which really directly affect people’s lives, we would

need the supportive equipment and training to be able to make

those determinations.

Obviously, there’s other equipment, the personal protective gear,

et cetera, that we do not have available for police who would be

rushing to the scene, all of that are needs that we have for this

type of episode.

The second area I would point out that you find in the mayor’s

testimony is simply the recognition that the city of Bridgeport is

on the nexus of major transportation routes. I–95 running through

Bridgeport and the train, as pointed out Friday, and Route 825

running down, have, in our knowledge, limited knowledge, quite an

extensive transport of chemical, noxious, other types of materials.

Now, we fully understand the importance and the necessity for

those having high security in terms of identification of when those

are transported through the city.

But I think that some consideration might be given to developing

protocols as to either advising urban areas when those transports

are occurring, to some extent. Minimally, protocols as to should an

event occur, an accident on the highway, a Mianus bridge giving

out, thus dumping some toxic materials on the city of Bridgeport,

as to a quick identification of the nature of the product, the volume

of the product that’s being transported through our city. And right

now that doesn’t exist.

And I think those are critical areas up front that may help us

identify who in the national level has that information and to

quickly make those first responder decisions. Without that information, our decisionmaking is in the dark.

So we very much appreciated learning on Friday all of the vast

array of expertise with the FBI and the Federal agencies. And I

think it was a tremendous learning experience for us.

And, Congressman, I really would like to thank you for your efforts in this regard. Thank you very much.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much.

Chief, thank you for being here.

I guess we have two Chiefs here. But Chief Torres. Thank you.

That’s like what I encounter sometimes when someone says something about Chris Dodd and I think they’re talking about me and

then I’m embarrassed to find out they’re talking about Chris Dodd.

So, Chief Torres, you have the——

STATEMENT OF HECTOR TORRES, POLICE CHIEF, CITY OF

BRIDGEPORT

Chief TORRES. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And it’s a

real honor for me to present here and have this opportunity to give

testimony before the Subcommittee on National Security.

Mr. SHAYS. I’m going to ask you to tilt the mic this way so it

comes over your paper a little bit.

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Chief TORRES. OK?

Mr. SHAYS. Yes.

Chief TORRES. Is that better?

Mr. SHAYS. Yes.

Chief TORRES. OK. It’s a real pleasure for me to be here this

morning to give testimony before the Subcommittee on National

Security, Veterans Affairs, and International Relations.

This past Friday was a real eye-opener for me. I’ve been an interim chief and I’m still in the learning process of learning this

business of being a chief. It was especially gratifying for me to be

there to take part in this important incident, command, terrorist

activity that just took place.

As chief of police, I understand that more funding is needed. And

I know that everybody has alluded to that, including John Wiltse

from the State Emergency Office of Management Services (sic).

And for me as an overseer of first responders, it’s important that

our first responders, police, fire, any emergency personnel, have the

ability to maximize their effectiveness by having the proper equipment available to them at the beginning of the incident.

Overall, the operation, the incident that took place on Friday was

very helpful. It was—it helped us to identify the levels of resources

that are available to us at the local, State and Federal level. I

didn’t realize how many bells and whistles are out there. And as

I look around the room, you know, I’m still amazed that there are

a lot of bells and whistles that are available to us.

The question is, is the opportunity to have them available to us

in the city of Bridgeport or in the region in a timely fashion? So

that’s one of the things that we need to look at, is to maybe have

some of these bells and whistles in our own back yard. Not that

they, you know, don’t need to be available in Massachusetts and

other locations, but we need to start looking at it in a more reasonable approach that are located in our own back yard, available to

us in a more timely fashion.

The incident that allowed us to put our thinking caps on—and

I believe that more of this integrated training is necessary so that

we at the local, State and Federal level can operate in a uniform

command structure way.

And, again, I’d like to reiterate that all this funding and all this

equipment is necessary at the municipal and regional level.

And I thank you for this opportunity.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Chief.

[The prepared statement of Chief Torres follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Chief Maglione.

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL MAGLIONE, FIRE CHIEF, CITY OF

BRIDGEPORT

Chief MAGLIONE. Let’s see if I can do this right. Reasonable?

Mr. SHAYS. Great.

Chief MAGLIONE. OK. Besides speaking as the fire chief of the

city of Bridgeport, I’m also speaking for the International Association of Fire Chiefs.

As you’re well aware, fire service throughout the country is the

first responder on all types of incidents. But using the scenario

that we went through on Friday, the key points that I believe are

going to be repeated again and again today are, one, the need for

the equipment at the local level for an immediate determination of

what type of agent that we’re dealing with, to safeguard our first

responders, to safeguard our citizens in general.

The second level of—that would fall into the equipment range.

And, again, equipment range would be protective equipment for the

first responders that are responding.

Second, we need ongoing training, training that involves the

local, State and Federal agencies that are involved, not just in

every 3-year timeframe or every 2-year timeframe but on an annual basis where we would have a large-scale event and on a

smaller scale, involving those same agencies, such as in the tabletop drills.

In the area of equipment, Congress has focused on each of the

50 States. In doing so, it is important that we not forget that this

equipment be supplied to the first responders. In Connecticut, in

the Fairfield County area, we deal with a regional response as far

as hazardous materials are concerned. This type of team has to

have the equipment and the training equal to anything that would

be available at the Federal level, which would be available at the

State level.

It’s very nice that we have the assets at the Federal and State

level. However, the problem here is that their response time is 4,

6, 8 hours out in the scenario. OK? And it’s just—it’s a consequence

of distance. It’s not any other problem. But we have to have this

detection equipment and preventive—mitigation equipment available to us immediately.

OK. There are two operational issues that should be addressed,

command and control and communications. And that—in the scenario on Friday, they came very quickly to the front. Communications with all the agencies that were involved—and I believe the

slide showed there were 40 different agencies. We have to have a

means of communicating. OK? And this lack of interoperable radio

communications among the responding agencies is a major weakness. OK?

Congress has the ability to change this. They have the ability to

set aside frequencies that will be devoted to just this type of massive emergency.

In the long run, it will be a lot more successful. It’s a shame that

in actual circumstances we end up using runners which were used

back in George Washington’s day. It’s something that we have to

work on.

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OK. Command and control. The Bridgeport Fire Department

uses the Incident Command System, the ICS system. This is

taught by the Federal Emergency Management, the National Fire

Academy. It’s something that all agencies, whether they are local,

Federal or State, have to be involved in. They have to learn how

the system works, how it functions, how it’s modular construction

and where we all fit in in that system.

OK. Finally, an effective preparedness effort and an effective response to an incident of terrorism requires a planning effort that

must involve all levels of government. We cannot possibly develop

a successful response system without the active participation of all

of the responsible agencies at all levels of the government.

We should plan together and train together. And we should do

so with an eye to the fact that we may face a spectrum of incidents

or threats, terrorist or non-terrorist. All agencies working toward

an all-risk national response system is what is called for.

Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Chief Maglione follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Gecewicz.

STATEMENT OF THOMAS E. GECEWICZ, DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC

HEALTH, CITY OF BRIDGEPORT

Mr. GECEWICZ. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. As you can

tell by my accent, I hail from the great State of Massachusetts and

I’m a newcomer to the city. I started here February 1. And as we

all know, anyone from Boston would take advantage of any political

setting. So I will take advantage of the entire 5 minutes, Mr.

Chairman. Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. I’d like the record to note, though, we wanted your

training in Massachusetts so by the time you got here, you were

all set to do the job just perfect.

Mr. GECEWICZ. Totally agree.

Mr. SHAYS. OK.

Mr. GECEWICZ. And it was the wisdom of the administration to

save moneys and do that. Thank you.

I am a certified health officer nationally and I serve on the National Association of City and County Health Officers. And I will

be testifying on behalf of themselves and the great city of Bridgeport.

As an elected member of the National Association, we brought

forth 5 years ago to Congress the original debate relative to bioterrorism, Mr. Chairman. And the concern at that time was relevant to what happened with Oklahoma City and also the travesty

that took place with Hurricane Floyd and how the devastation hit

this poor State of Florida.

It was well known that surveillance through public health was

the key issue. And if there was a terrorist act, it would be a public

health threat through anthrax or any other issue. And we thank

Congress that the moneys were originally appropriated. But, unfortunately, the word ‘‘surveillance’’ got lost in Congress. And as we

know, our associate concerns, the CIA, the FBI and the Department of Defense use the word ‘‘surveillance’’ different than the

original intent, which is to evaluate the need for public health concerns. And moneys were diverted from the public health issue

through Donna Shalala, the Secretary of Human Health Services,

and was put into the other three Federal agencies and public

health took a back door.

Fortunately, there is a filing under the 106th Congress last week

by Senator Frist, the Republican from Tennessee, and also Senator

Kennedy, the Democrat from Massachusetts. And this is for the

Internet Health Network. And I would ask your committee to

strongly support this bill when it comes before you. It will finally

put the moneys back into Public Health where it should be, members of the committee, so that we can guarantee that any virus, bio

or any other form of negativity that would be hitting our American

citizenship would be protected on the public health front line.

I can actually say that we worked cooperatively on Friday. And

being a newcomer to the city, it was great to see, with the accents

and everything that was going on, the communication at our table

was significantly positive. Unfortunately, we all found out that the

needs for proper communication is definitely the issue.

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I would say the FCC should definitely get involved. Most of us

can complain when we use our cell phones that there are blind

spots. Imagine if a blind spot is the location in which a terrorist

act would take place. As we know, the terrorism would take place

of any our weak points. And if you’re in the 128 belt, Mr. Tierney,

you know how often you lose communications. And if you’re in the

hills, the western part of the State of Connecticut, you also lose

communications. Therefore, the FCC has to make sure and guarantee that proper communications will be there.

We on the public health concern are also concerned with viruses.

We’re more concerned with issues such as the West Nile Virus

which is spreading into us, our State, due to the mosquito issue,

which was brought into this county, unfortunately, at the

LaGuardia Airport some time last summer. So infiltration from

outside the country can happen to us any given time, as can a terrorist act.

And we can guarantee through the first Kennedy Bill that public

health concerns will be protected, that we will have the EMS services that we need and that the positive action that our hospitals

here in the city had and the interfacing that we had with all the

other departments federally and locally will be strengthened

through communications. This is one of the key issues.

Not one Health Department actually is fully based across the

country. The original appropriations verified that 3,100 Health Departments did not even have front line communications other than

a fax machine; 95 percent did not even have computer capability.

That was the intent of the original appropriation.

Unfortunately, we can verify at this point that is still the case.

And Health Departments have to be on the front line. That’s why

Secretary Shalala has guaranteed, to the best of her ability

through CEC, that we will have the appropriations if this bill does

go through from Senators Frist and Kennedy.

All I can say is that there is a need. You know the need exists.

Congress heard our call 5 years ago. We’re here again asking for

public health to be equally treated with our other defense and

agencies that serve our public.

I thank you for the timing and giving me the opportunity to

speak. Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Gecewicz follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. I just would note that Mr. Appleby and Mr. Carden

and Ms. Winters, you’re full participants in this dialog. So don’t be

reluctant to step in.

That’s concluded the testimony. And I’d ask Ms. DeLauro if she’d

like to start us off.

Mrs. DELAURO. I appreciate the consideration. I have to catch an

airplane back to Washington in a little bit. So I thank my colleagues for allowing me to go first.

Let me just ask—we’ve heard the commentary about the equipment and the local training and the detection equipment, et cetera.

Let me just ask a couple of questions to help me. I got the results

of the drill on Friday. I could not be present at the drill.

But it’s my understanding that once there is Federal involvement, the leadership is clear. FBI takes the lead on crisis management. FEMA takes the lead on the consequence management. Who

is in charge when both police and fire emergency medical teams

are on the scene of an incident like this? And what happens when

other State and Federal and local agencies arrive? In essence, who

is in charge in the—when the first responders are on the scene?

Chief Maglione. OK. Will—— Mrs. DELAURO. I’m going to just say anybody answer at the moment because I want to save some time here. I’m not going to—— Chief MAGLIONE. I’ll take it.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me—if I could just ask you to suspend a second?

The interesting thing of this question will be that we’re doing it

from the local. We’ll ask the same question of the State and the

Federal. And we may get different answers. But we’re asking from

your perspective and then what you think should happen.

Mrs. DELAURO. Right. Because my followup to that is then who

do you think—let me just say the question. Who do you think

should be in charge? Who is in charge? Who should be in charge?

Do you think we can have a regional, literally a regional approach

to command and control of these situations and with sharing of

equipment, et cetera? Then I have a final question.

Chief MAGLIONE. OK. Well, as far as responding to an incident— OK—in the State of Connecticut the fire service, when they respond, is in charge. However, in an incident of this magnitude or

any magnitude that involves police department EMS, a joint command is set up. And that joint command flows even as other agencies become involved. As the State becomes involved, there—at the

actual incident, there is a command level and there would be a

joint command of what agencies were actually functioning at the

incident. Then, as additional resources are brought in—and I use

the term resources—these groups would be, you know, additional

resources.

Mrs. DELAURO. For instance?

Chief MAGLIONE. Health departments at the State level, health—

emergency management, additional police at the State level. OK?

So the control—the command—there would be a command at the

incident and then in an emergency operations center, whether that

be local or, as it becomes larger, at the State or Federal level, to

where the FBI would step in and create a JOC.

Mrs. DELAURO. So at the scene at the moment, you have your

first responders. The first agencies in charge are police and fire.

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Chief MAGLIONE. Yes.

Mrs. DELAURO. It’s a joint—— Chief MAGLIONE. It would be a joint—— Mrs. DELAURO. It’s a joint effort.

Chief MAGLIONE [continuing]. Command because decisions would

be made that we—one individual would be the incident commander. But as the emphasis at the scene shifted, if it became now

an issue arose that should be more police-oriented, then the police

representative would make the request to his higher-up that ‘‘We

need this section blocked off.’’ OK? If it’s—and if the incident grew

as far as more information was needed, a haz/mat decision, the fire

then would step in and take the lead and say ‘‘We need this, this,

this.’’ Mrs. DELAURO. All right. You’re there. You’re on the ground.

You’ve got a joint command. You know, we may have the hospital

people coming in to deal with that. But they filter through you.

Chief MAGLIONE. OK. The house—— Mrs. DELAURO. Then what happens—— Chief MAGLIONE. That would be back at another level—— Mrs. DELAURO. OK.

Chief MAGLIONE [continuing]. As a resource.

Mrs. DELAURO. That’s a resource. So that’s a back-up.

Chief MAGLIONE. That’s a resource.

Mrs. DELAURO. What happens when the State people come on

the scene?

Chief MAGLIONE. The State—my understanding is the State

comes in as a resource.

Mrs. DELAURO. As a resource—— Chief MAGLIONE. The local community—— Mrs. DELAURO [continuing]. To the local effort.

Chief MAGLIONE. Right. The local community is the command

function.

Mrs. DELAURO. And then what happens when the Federal Government comes on the scene?

Chief MAGLIONE. Again, it’s still a resource. But until—— Mrs. DELAURO. This is Big Foot? I mean is that—— Chief MAGLIONE. Yes. No. And I learned something new. When

the FBI declares a joint command, they become—they become involved at the higher level. But still at the incident itself, that initial group of local responders will still be in command but now fall

under the guidance of the Federal authorities.

Mrs. DELAURO. Is that the way it should be? Oh, go ahead. I’m

sorry, Mr. Gecewicz.

Mr. GECEWICZ. If I could speak on behalf of the public health

concern? We in public health statutorily from the Federal level

down could take the initial control ourselves and always have had

that right since 1860 specifically. However, we do not because we

are not really equipped to do such. We may be there for the evaluation. After the concern of the police and fire and the incident is secured and protected, then comes the real issue; that is the savings

of lives, the continuation of support of the well-being.

As we know, we’re a government of the people, by the people and

for the people. The people are locally and that’s where the local

service is going to be, the local police, fire and health departments

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responding cooperatively together with the assistance of the EMS

to save lives and property.

By the time you have the State kick in, which, unfortunately, the

State across the country have been trying to get the capital—across

the entire country, most of the dollars have been going directly to

the States and they have not trickled down to the front level line

of protection, which is the local communities. This is what has to

be altered. The local communities need the capital. It would take

2 to 4 hours before the public health services or any other State

services other than a police department could respond. The State

police are here with us. They, I would say, were the only State

agency that could respond immediately to us. And they do an excellent job. But my knowledge in four other States have always been

that, other than the State police, it takes 2 to 4 hours for any other

State agency to get in line to be on the front line to support us.

And the Federal Government would take 8 hours or an average of

that before. By that time, lives are lost.

Mrs. DELAURO. Are already lost. How—that’s your—how should

we—should we keep it the way that you’ve talked about it today?

Should there be some other mechanism?

Chief MAGLIONE. As far as the command structure is, I don’t

think any changes have to be made in the command. It’s just that

everybody has to be instructed in the Incident Command System

and understand how that develops.

Mrs. DELAURO. OK. Is there any kind of regional plan that exists

at the moment or local plan? In other words, today we’re talking

through all of our school systems, all of our school personnel and

administrators, and saying to them ‘‘Because of the incidents of

youth violence all over the country, that you need to be prepared.

You need to be able to deal with the building. You need to be able

to deal with the students. You need to be able to deal with what’s

happening.’’ So literally today we’re looking at school systems all

over the country who have a plan on paper that says, ‘‘This is how

we proceed when something happens.’’

Is that the same for these kinds of incidents?

Chief MAGLIONE. Yes. Yes.

Mr. GECEWICZ. Every State FEMA division or EMS has a State

plan. And the State plan is broken down to regions. And each region is broken down locally.

Mrs. DELAURO. Did the plan work on Friday?

Mr. GECEWICZ. Yes.

Chief MAGLIONE. Yes. The plan worked, but there were breakdowns in communications. It’s a function of people working together using the plan and learning the plan so that when the incident happens, no matter what the type of incident, depending on

the scale, people can step into the positions and know what the responsibilities are and then, as part of that plan, know also what

resources are available at the different levels.

Mrs. DELAURO. OK. I have just one final comment. It would

seem to me from what I’ve heard—and, again, I was not there on

Friday. So I just—I read the newspaper account as well—is that— and from what I’ve heard you say here is that there was a plan.

The plan worked with some glitches and some breakdowns. And,

yet, I’ve heard everyone say the ability to deal with this—there was

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lack of resources, lack of local equipment, lack of local training, you

know, several other missing pieces.

So I’m trying to get a sense of whether or not we have at least

a framework in which we can deal with this issue, but we don’t

have a whole lot of resources, whether they’re technical resources

or personnel resources, in order to be able to effectively implement

the plan. Is that—yes.

Mr. MURPHY. If I might just—the plan that we have, there is an

onsite command center, which is police, fire. We have, once it’s declared, our emergency operations center is opened, then essentially

the mayor is in charge of all of those assets, board of education,

health department, fire department, et cetera. That’s the command

center.

The protocols that I think need to be developed or more clearly

communicated and disseminated are once the State and Federal

agencies, particularly Federal, arrive on the scene and set up what

they refer to as a joint command center—I was confused on Friday

as to—— Mrs. DELAURO. Who was really in charge?

Mr. MURPHY. As to they were commanding what subject matter

issues? Certainly if it’s terrorism, they’re in command of those policing issues. But if it’s a command issue of are we evacuating

schools and neighborhoods, closing the city, closing—suggesting

Fairfield close, that’s coming out of our local EOC. So I—it’s those

protocols as to who is in charge of what I think need to be spelled

out a little bit better.

Mrs. DELAURO. What’s our ability to do this on a regional level

when you have—you know, the Third Congressional District is 18

towns. You know, the Fourth District is, you know, eight?

Mr. SHAYS. Ten.

Mrs. DELAURO. Ten. Sorry.

Is—realistically, can we do this on a regional basis, given

turf——

Chief TORRES. I believe we can change that.

Mrs. DELAURO [continuing]. And jurisdictions?

Chief TORRES. I believe it can be regionalized as long as we come

up with a joint consolidated action plan. You know, we all have to

be on the same page. And that involves the training and the exercises, joint exercises, so that we could all understand what our

roles are and that we don’t operate outside of our roles.

Chief MAGLIONE. The main problem here is that if we’re accepting a 4-hour response, 6-hour response, 8-hour and out, then we

should tell our citizens right now a lot of people are going to suffer.

OK?

What we’re looking for, at least on—as first responders, is to

have the ability to make determinations very quickly so then we

can shorten that timeframe on getting the additional resources

available. And that’s where we lack.

We lack the detection equipment. We lack the training. And a

terrorist event that involves an agent is nothing but a haz/mat experience. We need that.

Yes, on a regional basis as far as having a regional haz/mat team

that’s trained and equipped to the level at the Federal agencies,

that’s wonderful. OK? Because maybe it’s beyond—it’s definitely

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beyond many of the smaller communities to do that. And so a regional approach is very good. A larger city may have the ability to

do it within itself.

But, as far as that, the equipment and the training and the response and a quick response, that’s the important element that I

see. OK?

As far as the command and control that we were talking about

the different levels, there is a system in place. It’s just a matter

of people working together and training. OK? And it’s a system

that goes across the country. OK? It’s already been taught by

FEMA, by the National Fire Academy. And it’s used. OK.

Part of that training also has to be what are the responsibilities

of the local people as it escalates to a State event and a Federal

event. OK?

Mrs. DELAURO. Thank you very much.

Mr. GECEWICZ. If I could make a summation? And I think we

learned this in the Chelsea fire. The concern is that when they

shifted from the local to the Federal level, those who have always

worked with the Feds were invited to the table. The Feds invited

the police and fire. Public Health was not invited. However, Public

Health has always been trained that disease does not know boundaries. Disease carries across county, town and State lines.

And the concern I had—and I did make note to my national association, exactly as when everyone got to the table, Public Health

was there always speaking, but we’re always pushed behind because those who have always worked cooperatively together were

together. Public Health has never been at the table.

But I will say in this administration, with what we had here in

the city, I was equally treated with my other brethren and I felt

comfortable and that concern has been positive in the city. But I

have not seen it in any other city across the Nation.

Mrs. DELAURO. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Tierney.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you for your testimony, members of the panel. If I can

just concentrate on two areas before I give the microphone back to

the chairman on this? One would be hospitals. We had a little bit

of testimony on this down at some of the hearings in Washington.

And I was concerned about the capacity of hospitals to actually

service people that were coming out of these incidents.

And I understand from the review of what happened on Friday,

you’ve got the further difficulty of contamination once people got to

the hospital, as well as treatment.

Could you tell me a little bit about those three aspects?

Mr. CARDEN. Yes. Certainly. The hospitals certainly have internal/external disaster plans and prepare for incidents like this.

However, they have to know the incident exists. And one of the big

problems we have with any incident like this is that you just don’t

get patients transported by ambulance to the hospital. You get the

ones who walked away from it and then walk in and you don’t

know they’re contaminated.

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In addition, the hospitals do have limited resources for decontamination. If you have an outside shower stall with ice cold water

and it’s bad weather, it’s not a good way to go.

And once you bring these patients in and you’ve contaminated an

area, you have to isolate them and then identify areas for the other

patients to go to and block things off. So there’s certainly difficulties there.

And in this scenario, patients were brought in and ended up

being treated in the cafeteria, which I hope doesn’t happen ever.

But that was the case. So the whole area was contaminated. There

was a real problem with that. And then you need to look for other

areas.

Hospitals do have plans in place that will isolate areas. They

have plans to bring additional staff in. Certainly, part of the big

process there is education, especially for the staff. If you call me

at home and you tell me somebody’s coming in with some horrible

disease and I don’t know what it is, it’s going to be hard for me

to tear myself away from my family and drive in. So educating the

staff and getting the equipment that’s required for that is important.

Other capabilities they have currently are disaster plans that address bio-readiness for terrorism that are close to in fruition. We’re

lucky in Bridgeport that the two hospitals work very closely together in terms of hazardous plans and things of that nature.

Jane, is there anything——

Mr. TIERNEY. If I could just interrupt you before you give it to

Ms. Winters there? You have a large number of people potentially

coming in all at once or, worse, they come in a little bit at a time

and it mounts to a large amount of people. What other facilities do

you have besides the hospitals themselves? Because, assuming this

happens—as I understand, your scenario indicated on Friday you

have a flu epidemic or something. Do you have a contingent plan

for setting up an alternative site?

Mr. CARDEN. We—currently at Bridgeport, I don’t believe there’s

an alternative, alternate site. We do have available floors and

space in the hospital that’s not utilized. And when those incidents

occur, especially with a flu epidemic, what we do is call in additional staff and reopen floors and assign beds.

Mr. TIERNEY. OK.

Ms. WINTERS. In addition, we also have communication with the

other hospitals in the State of Connecticut that we would be able

to find out what their resources were. But in the drill this past Friday, our resources were clearly wiped out because of a lack of understanding as to what exactly was occurring.

We would be getting information from our EMS and from our

communications system that says there was something going on

and this may occur. But, again, we’re—our preparedness, we have

very limited resources. We happen to work in a city that has chosen to act rather than react. This isn’t the case in all the towns

that we service.

And, unfortunately, I would have to say if this was to occur in

one of our smaller communities, I don’t think the response would

have been as good.

50

Mr. TIERNEY. Tell me a little bit more about that. Why? Where

is the communication breakdown between the incident and the hospital’s knowledge of when and where and what?

Ms. WINTERS. The responders that are going in may be local volunteers who may have the knowledge but don’t have the frequency.

They don’t have the opportunity to train and to practice and continue to update their needs. They have high turnovers. Volunteerism in the State of Connecticut is—we’re struggling with some of

our volunteer services. And as that occurs, we’re then relying on

resources which are very well prepared. But they may be 5, 10, 15,

20 minutes away for the first responders to get there.

You have fire service that would be there. You have police departments that would be there. But, again, they may only have

three or four people currently on staff. To deal with a situation like

we were presented with, their resources would be overwhelmed the

minute they hit the scene.

Mr. TIERNEY. So you’re advocating training getting down to all

of the reserve forces and the——

Ms. WINTERS. Correct.

Mr. TIERNEY [continuing]. Volunteers? Well, that’s an

enormous——

Ms. WINTERS. Correct.

Mr. CARDEN. There’s no question that the volunteers in all the

services need training. It was clear that we had a lot of canaries

going into the mine on this exercise. And, of course, they didn’t

come back out.

The education and training aspect to identify what are problems

before you talk into it is very important, not only for us—and we’re

the guys in the big city who walked into this. Think of the folks

who have no serious high-level—or high-volume, I should say, experience with that.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Halaby, excuse my ignorance, but I’m not familiar with the—with Trumbull and how it operates. Do you have

a volunteer force there?

Mr. HALABY. We have a volunteer fire department. We have

about 130 volunteers who do an outstanding job, three fire

districts——

Mr. TIERNEY. And how are they equipped——

Mr. HALABY [continuing]. Three Fire Chiefs——

Mr. TIERNEY [continuing]. For a situation like this. How would

they be able to respond and interact with the hospital to make sure

that everything was ready and able to go forward?

Mr. HALABY. They are trained pretty well. However, I think they

need to go through these exercises in terms of interacting with

other interdisciplinary agencies, as well as the hospitals.

Mr. TIERNEY. So more regular——

Mr. HALABY. Yes. Training.

Mr. TIERNEY [continuing]. Incidents like you had on Friday.

Mr. HALABY. Yes. Indeed.

Mr. TIERNEY. OK. Thank you.

Mr. Gecewicz, let me ask you. I think it was you that mentioned—or it might have been Chief Maglione—about the frequency

issue on communications. Was it the Chief? I’m sorry.

51

You’re telling me that basically one of the situations that you

had was that there was not a secure frequency that was available

to the responders on this?

Chief MAGLIONE. What is missing is a frequency or a multiple of

frequencies, not just one frequency, that all the agents, agencies

that are involved can communicate on. We all come to the table

with all different frequencies.

Mr. TIERNEY. Now, is that so even with your—with non-biological

or chemical agents or any fire or other police issue?

Chief MAGLIONE. On a local basis, I have no problem in communicating with the police. I have no problem communicating with

EMS. But as we go out of our own local and the outside agencies

are coming in, that’s where a weakness in communications exists.

Mr. TIERNEY. So you’d need some frequency or frequencies to

switch to at that point where you could be on the same—— Chief MAGLIONE. That’s right. But it would have to be multiple

frequencies.

Chief TORRES. Yes. Availability of resources—as they’re coming

in to the city—because we have mutual assistance pacts with our

surrounding communities. As police officers, we can communicate

with each other. But different police departments have different

frequencies. So we need to develop an integrated communication

system so that I can, at the incident command level, understand

what resources I have available to me, whether it be police, fire or

emergency services personnel.

Mr. TIERNEY. You don’t have anything like that now for your

area?

Chief TORRES. Not at the level that we’re expecting, you know— this incident that happened on Friday, it full taxed our systems.

And we—that was one of the shortcomings that we saw; you know,

the ability to know what resources we can apply and what resources are coming into the city.

Mr. TIERNEY. OK. Thank you.

Chief MAGLIONE. Congressman.

Mr. TIERNEY. Yes?

Chief MAGLIONE. Just as an example, that vehicle over there

would be an on-scene incident command vehicle and has a vast

array of communications abilities. However, that’s on-scene. When

you go now back to the communications center, that’s where the

weakness now begins.

Mr. TIERNEY. So this is better than what you have back at the

ranch?

Chief MAGLIONE. What that has there has a vast array, but for

an on-scene. It doesn’t reach and help. The emergency—the operation communications centers are what would have to be beefed up.

I’m lucky. I have that vehicle. Most communities do not.

Mr. TIERNEY. OK. Thank you.

Mr. GECEWICZ. Mr. Congressman.

Mr. TIERNEY. Sure.

Mr. GECEWICZ. The concern we have in public health is we do not

even have radios. We, other than being at the table with the police

chief and the fire chief, I did not have any direct communication

with my office other than a telephone line. And we all know

through Oklahoma and other national disasters, as soon as that

52

happens, when you have NBC and CBS and ABC come in, all the

telephone lines go down and they control everything. That’s why

this need for the Internet communication for public health is a

major issue that we have and a secure line possibly through a disk

or cell so that we could bounce off a satellite and have communications because even our cell phones would go down. And there were

no communications—I have 196 staffers, 4 physicians; 95 percent

of my staff are masters or above. I have 85 nurses. I couldn’t even

utilize them if I had to because there was no way of getting to

them through communication other than doing a run like Paul Revere.

Mr. TIERNEY. Now, this particular problem you see as an issue

not for the local authorities to resolve or the State? You think this

is a Federal—— Mr. GECEWICZ. That is definitely a Federal concern. Thank you.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentlemen.

I found Friday almost overwhelming when I walked into the

room. I expected to see four tables, six people around each table,

a room, you know, the size of maybe two classrooms. And that

whole area was just packed with very, very dedicated people on the

Federal and State level. And it was almost overwhelming to see the

cooperation that I saw between the various groups.

But I also realize that the task is immense. When I was talking

with EMS fellows, they said they lost 58 of their people in the first

response, 58 people killed or, you know, just incapacitated, and not

even knowing it. So the first line of defense because the second

wave of victims.

I was struck by if this committee did nothing else—and, obviously, it was the Office of Emergency Management that did it. But,

if nothing else came from this, just going through that process, that

day-long event, had to have been very, very helpful for this area.

And it makes me think that first on my list is to see ways to fund

more of these exercises around the country.

Now, when you started, each of you went through your various

lists of things. I found myself most touched by the one, ‘‘Who do

you call?’’ I mean, in other words, this disaster has happened. Who

do you call?

Now, maybe—I’m interested to know if all of you share in that

feeling. I’m going to go right up the line.

Chief, do you have a sense that there’s someone you need to be

able to call that you don’t know how to get in touch with? Is that

a problem for you?

Chief MAGLIONE. No. That’s in place. I mean in our—in the local

community. It starts at the local. Then we declare an emergency,

it goes off, hands off to the State.

Mr. SHAYS. OK.

Chief MAGLIONE. And the key is, though, we have to know what

resources are out there or have to pass the message ‘‘We need this’’ and then it has to pass on through the system so it arrives.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Chief Torres.

Chief TORRES. For Bridgeport, we have an emergency operation

plan. So when we, as first responders, police officers, we set up our

53

first incident command at the scene. If it digresses or it escalates

into a situation where more resources are called, then that’s where

the EOC comes in. So we have a plan in place. It’s when the other

resources start to come in, when it digresses or escalates into a situation where we need outside resources, when we start calling in

for our MAP’s, our mutual assistance plans, and we start calling

in for the State or Federal. That’s when the situation becomes a

little bit more tricky. And, again, that’s where we need the training

and experience of these exercises to keep us going.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Halaby, I make the assumption that you’re going

to turn to your chief of police and your chief of—fire chief and then

you’re going to be, what, seeking guidance from them?

Mr. MURPHY. That’s correct. And they strongly suggested that

they be afforded an updated roster from the Federal level through

the State right down to the local level as to people they could call

and their beeper numbers and fax numbers so they could keep that

readily available in the case of an emergency.

Mr. SHAYS. I make the assumption that the—that you’re going

to call on Mr. Appleby and you’re going to say—that’s ultimately— and, Mr. Appleby, we haven’t heard from you.

But, Mr. Murphy, my general point would be you have a little

more resources than the Town of Trumbull has and you have people in place who are focused on this as their full-time effort.

Mr. MURPHY. That’s correct. Yes. I may have been the one that

made the suggestion about knowing who to contact. I think that we

certainly have the roll-out of notifications throughout the State levels. I think the issue might have been suggested that should terrorism take advantage of the high volume of toxic material that comes

through Bridgeport, that we do not know precisely who would we

call. And these, of course, have their own registration and identification at the Federal level.

Precisely who knows what is on that shipment and what the volume is? We don’t know who that person would be that we would

call to find that out to make those decisions within the first hour.

We would certainly roll out the request of information through

probably a whole host of agencies attempting to get that, DOT, et

cetera. But I think that’s something that we would need to learn

those protocols.

Mr. SHAYS. Given that you’re in the crossroads of so much traffic,

whether hazardous material was a result of a terrorist or just an

accident, the challenge is basically still the same. And so I would

imagine Bridgeport began to think about this a little sooner than

some other communities, was forced to. Just like a city like Chicago

or New York has had to.

Mr. MURPHY. Yes.

Mr. SHAYS. But, Mr. Appleby, I’d be curious to have you just kind

of tell me—you have a crisis and you have a consequence management. Do you have—the FBI looks at it one way. The fire department looks at it another. The health department looks at lives to

be saved. Not that we’re not—we’re all concerned about it. But the

FBI sees a crime. What do you see when you see this event? What

were you thinking?

Mr. APPLEBY. Well, I think the biggest—the biggest problem in

emergency management that you face is tying everybody together.

54

It’s—there’s a lot of good plans out there. It’s just a fact of pulling

them all together into one unified plan. Like most of our colleagues

have said, working together, training together, exercising together.

This was a great opportunity for us because we actually took the

time to look at our plan and said, ‘‘Does this work? Does this not

work?’’

We might think it might work. And most of us might also understand that when you’re on the scene of an incident, your plan that

you think is the best plan is not going to work and you might have

to go through four or five different other attempts to minimize a

situation.

I think another big point about the who is in charge, where the

resources are coming from, in the emergency operation plan that’s

required through FEMA—and each town and municipality is required to have this under Federal and State laws—that we must

understand that one unified plan will work elsewhere. Demographics are different. As a large city of Bridgeport, again being

the big brother of a lot of small towns, our plan might be different

from other towns as far as resources, as far as manpower.

The plan itself could be the same. To know where—what steps

of the process the Federal Government’s going to tie or the State’s

going to tie in—if we, like most of my colleagues said, are not going

to be able to get the resources within the first hour or two or are

not going to have the devices in the first hour or two, it makes jobs

a lot more difficult to handle when we’re doing in-place shelter and

where we’re evacuating schools or we’re telling people to go here.

Once they start seeing—and I think on a public level, they start

seeing a lot of the first responders are now—there’s a lot of chaos,

the media now grasps that and it causes more of a problem.

So I think if we all start working together from a Federal right

down to the local level in trying to unify our plans—we have a lot

of tools as far as knowing who to call, where to get the resources.

We—myself as an emergency operation center, we would contact

the State. The State will then provide us with information in regards to when these resources will be readily available, how quick

they come onto the scene, so on and so forth.

I think it runs into a problem when you start, again, going into

the 6, 8, 12-hour radius that, again, the scene is over at that time.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. The question still on the table is, is there any

question of who you have to call? Are you a resource that doesn’t

need to call anyone else?

Mr. GECEWICZ. Well, Mr. Chairman, I guess the summation—I

feel like a Sunday afternoon coach coaching a football or a baseball

team or a basketball team from my television because I’m not at

the playing field. What I mean by that is I can call Dr. Satcher,

the General Surgeon, I could call Dr. Baker from CDC or Secretary

Shalala. I have the direct phone numbers, communications and everything else. But I don’t have a phone. And, if anything, I need

35 cents to go to the public phone to make the phone call. That’s

the concern. And I’m being realistic. And I don’t mean to be——

Mr. SHAYS. Well, let me just be the devil’s advocate a second. I

mean an emergency happens. You have, for instance, the Bridgeport Fire Department command post. I mean there are places

55

where you can go. I’m not sure that you need to have a command

post.

Mr. GECEWICZ. No. That’s not the case, Mr. Chairman. What I’m

speaking about is the utilization of 196 trained professionals. I

have doctors and nurses. I can’t get a hold of them.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. But let me just ask you, is this an insurmountable problem or is this just an easy—I mean can you be talking

with Mr. Appleby and could you guys be resolving this or does

something have to happen on the State or Federal level to resolve

this one?

Mr. GECEWICZ. Nationally, the Public Health Department are

never tied into the communications. And the reason being is most

communities, like in Massachusetts, for example, parks, recreation

are all underneath the chief administrative—or the Board of Selectmen. Unfortunately, public health is always separate.

So, therefore, when appropriations come down for equipment

such as radio communications, telephones, it goes to those through

the administration, not to public health or the School Department.

The School Department sits independently as does Public Health

sit independently.

So that all the trained staff that I would have that would be able

to assist at the front line I couldn’t get to if the telephone lines

went down. If you had a hurricane and there was no phone lines,

I might have 196 people in one building, but I couldn’t even speak

to them.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Let me just say to you that I think it’s a very

important point that you make that becomes very real from this exercise. And, fortunately, I think it’s a solvable problem and which

we—what you’re telling this committee is we need to see it’s the

same challenge elsewhere. And you’re pretty convinced it is. And

I think you’re probably right.

What I think would have been interesting is if you didn’t have

an explosion on the Amtrak train but, instead, the hospitals all of

a sudden started to notice that they were having these illnesses

and they didn’t even know where they were coming from.

Now, we all around the country have people who are continually

on a daily basis checking with hospitals to see if they have some

kind of unexpected type of event that’s just not the norm.

And so, Mr. Carden, let me just ask you this question. And Ms.

Winters. Does that exist in this area? I mean are we—are you in

communication with—is there communication between both hospitals? Is the Health Department checking periodically to say ‘‘Is

there any type of disease, virus, that’s showing up that we just

think is a little unusual?’’

Mr. CARDEN. I can say quite honestly, yes, there is. And, in fact,

with the big flu epidemic we had recently in January, February of

this year, the hospitals, Health Department, as well as the hospitals in the region and the State, checked with each other for a

number of issues. One is bed availability. If we run out of beds and

places to put patients, we want to know who can take care of those

patients nearby and then work with EMS to transport those patients to the appropriate facility. So there is communication back

and forth.

Mr. SHAYS. Ms. Winters, any comment you’d want to make?

56

Mr. CARDEN. Oh. I’m sorry.

Ms. WINTERS. In addition, the communication that we would be

getting from the scene, in this particular situation this is one of the

areas that was of concern, is that the first responders, the police,

the fire, they had no idea what, indeed, may have happened. They

had no way of detecting what was there. So the hospitals were

being called upon to base an impression as to what they might

have been exposed to based on symptomatology.

Providing that basis of a link back to the first responders to give

them appropriate screenings, appropriate tools to decipher what

was going on out there, we happened to be lucky. It was a garlic

smell that was fairly prominent and identifiable as a mustard gas.

But if it was a bio—a virus that had exploded, that we wouldn’t

get this for 2 or 3 days down the road. And then at that point, we’d

be looking to use resources of public health and access them from

that perspective.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me just say—I really do want to get on to the

next panel. And I want my staff, both staffs who were at the event

on Friday, to see if they have any questions.

But I think every one of you knows what role you have to play

as it relates to investigation of a crime, keeping order and so on,

dealing with the hazardous event from the fire department standpoint, dealing with the health consequences.

But is there a conviction on the part of all of you that you can

do this as a team or do you need one person in charge giving orders? In my office, if I have two people in charge, sometimes no one

is in charge. So I always like to have one person ultimately that

has to take the responsibility. Does that ultimately become the

mayor, the first selectman? Does it ultimately become the Governor? I mean help me through, without spending a lot of time on

this—who wants to jump in? Yes.

Mr. MURPHY. Congressman, we’ve had some occurrences in

Bridgeport where we’ve had to operate the EOC. And, quite frankly, in my experience we do so on a team discussion basis, a consensus of ‘‘What’s the next step? What do we know? And based on

that, what are the options? What’s the next step?’’ When it comes down to—since these folks are all independent

and strong professionals, you’re right, if there’s a call to be made,

it’s made by the executive officer of the city, which is the mayor,

in terms of making a determination as to an appropriate course of

action or requesting the police or fire to take—or health to take an

appropriate step. So that’s—the executive is charged by statute and

by local ordinance with those authorities, powers. But it’s a team

exercise.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Any other comment?

OK. Larry, you had a question?

Mr. HALLORAN. Yes. Thank you.

The point was made during Mr. Wiltse’s presentation about

training, that right now this training is viewed as extra and has

to be added on and you’ve got to backfill the position and it’s difficult to sequence and arrange it. What can you tell us or how can

we help you integrate this training in the baseline curriculum,

medical school, for example, police and fire, so this isn’t extra but

it’s part of the training that everybody goes through and that we

57

don’t have the problem with backfilling and sequencing and making this extra effort?

Mr. GECEWICZ. Well, if I could speak on the public health side?

The American Public Health Association has, through its national

programs, training specifically through air quality, bio-terrorism.

They actually have a subcommittee. This annual meeting will be

held in Boston. So I would suspect that the people in the Greater

New England area could participate.

However, there are some States that will not afford appropriations so that staff members can leave the State nor give them the

training time. For example, in Massachusetts, you cannot leave the

State of Massachusetts for any capital purposes and there are no

moneys appropriated other than local training. That has always

been a hindrance. And I know that’s the case in three other States.

Chief MAGLIONE. In the——

Mr. SHAYS. OK. I’m sorry——

Chief MAGLIONE. In the area of the training, at the present time

in the area of terrorism, it’s a train the trainer that came out of

the National Fire Academy under FEMA. And that’s wonderful.

But in the fire service and in the police service, there is so much

ongoing training that goes on on a daily basis that what we also

need is the ability for someone to come in from the outside and provide the training or for us to be able to take a number—and this

would require funding. And you talked about backfilling—and to

send people to a central location or regional location where this

training could take place.

And the training that we’re talking about and the command

function is not just related to terrorism. It’s related to all risks. So

it would be functional in many different ways.

Chief TORRES. That’s exactly the same thing with the police service. You know, as far as training police officers, it’s—we’re in an

ongoing training because it’s our mandate that we recertify ourselves. So this terrorism training is something that we also do as

well.

What’s important is to bring all the specialties, all the groups of

people, together in a unified way so that they can learn the information and be on the same page at the same time.

Ms. WINTERS. From the hospital and health perspective, the

training that we have is our basic assessment and understanding

hazardous materials, understanding that the communication that’s

going to take place currently doesn’t exist. There’s no standard.

There’s nothing that is required to be taught in any of the training

programs. The EMT programs and the paramedic programs do require familiarization, but that doesn’t necessarily extend to the

hospital personnel.

Mr. CARDEN. Just to add on to that, certainly the EMS programs

do have some basic training and certainly require a great deal

more. And the drill Friday showed us that clearly. In-hospital staff

certainly need that as well. The folks in the emergency departments and the folks who treat people on the floors need to know

what they’re looking at.

And just as—I’m going to add on beyond on our own scope, the

general public probably needs some information on various things

58

like this. And it’s not going to avoid widespread panic, but it may

keep it down just a little bit.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. I missed the last point you made. Would

you just make the last point again?

Mr. CARDEN. I think it’s probably not a bad idea that we have

some general information for the public on issues like this so that

if something does occur and someone hears a boxcar full of something has opened up, you’re not going to have a widespread panic,

people knocking down hospital doors who haven’t been exposed or

haven’t seen anything of that.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much.

Is there anything that anyone would like to say before we conclude? I thank——

Mr. HALABY. Yes.

Mr. SHAYS. Yes.

Mr. HALABY. Mr. Congressman, I’d just like to mention one thing

on behalf of the small towns. It’s very difficult for a small town to

find funding on its own to get this necessary training. And it was

stressed to me that the interdisciplinary training, as the chief just

mentioned, is critical for small towns to understand how everyone

relates to one another through the experience. And we’d appreciate

being able to obtain some funding to educate our people.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Thank you very much.

Mr. HALABY. Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. We thank all of you for your participation on Friday

and your participation today. Thank you. And for all the good work

you do. You’re on the line of fire.

I’m absolutely convinced there will be a terrorist attack, be it biological, chemical or nuclear. We don’t know where it’s going to be.

It could be on more than one occasion. And, yet, we all have to be

prepared for it. And I’m grateful you’re all there. Thank you very

much.

Mr. SHAYS. I’d call on our next panel and ask them to remain

standing so that we can swear them in. Major General William

Cugno, Adjutant General, Connecticut National Guard; Dr. Henry

Lee, Commissioner, Department of Public Safety, State of Connecticut; Dr. Garcia, commissioner, Department of Public Health, State

of Connecticut, Mr. Arthur Rocque, commissioner, Department of

Environmental Protection, State of Connecticut; and Chief Wayne

Sandford, Connecticut representative, New England Fire Chiefs,

East Haven Fire Department in East Haven, CT. So it goes Cugno,

Lee, Garcia, Rocque and Sandford.

Thank you. Do we have everyone here?

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

Note for the record that all our witnesses responded in the affirmative.

And we will go as I called you. I guess that would, General

Cugno, you’ll go first and then Dr. Lee and then Dr. Garcia and

then Mr. Rocque and then Chief Sandford. Great to have all of you

here. Thank you for being here.

General.

59

STATEMENT OF GENERAL WILLIAM CUGNO, ADJUTANT

GENERAL, CONNECTICUT NATIONAL GUARD

General CUGNO. Good morning, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. Good morning.

General CUGNO. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Representative

Tierney. On behalf of the nearly 6,000 men and women who comprise the Connecticut National Guard and the State Military Department, I want to begin my thanking you for inviting me to testify and participate in a very important hearing on ‘‘Domestic Preparedness Against Terrorism: How Ready Are We?’’

As the Adjutant General of Connecticut, I am entrusted by the

Governor with the authority necessary to carry out all provisions

of our general statutes regarding the Military Department, the

Connecticut National Guard and the Office of Emergency Management.

I serve as the principal advisor to the Governor on military matters, emergency operations and civil support. I act as the commanding general of the Connecticut National Guard.

And as the adjutant general, I have two main responsibilities.

My Federal responsibility is to prepare the Connecticut National

Guard’s units and serve as the custodian of the CINC’s forces for

when they’re Federalized by the President of the United States. In

my State capacity as adjutant general, I’m the senior emergency

management official for Connecticut. I exercise this authority

through the Connecticut Office of Emergency Management.

Connecticut, along with 26 other States, has the Office of Emergency Management organized within the Military Department. The

OEM serves as the principal liaison and coordinator to the Federal

Emergency Management Agency known as FEMA.

In our State, we divide the State into five emergency management regions. Each regional office has a relationship and serves as

the principal liaison and coordinates to the cities and towns within

those areas.

The Military Department currently develops unified emergency

operation plans for a number of potential emergencies. We maintain and implement plans for nuclear preparedness, safety, natural

and manmade disasters and civil disturbance.

In recognition of the uniqueness of each State, I offer my comments as specific to the State of Connecticut. In Connecticut, emergency response continues—contingencies mirror the Federal response plan and most State agencies have a role in this particular

plan.

The Governor’s role is clearly outlined in both the U.S. Constitution and the Connecticut general statutes. The Governor expects

and appreciates the efforts of the Federal Government in preserving the welfare of our citizens and the infrastructure of our communities. He is also aware of the evolving threat of domestic terrorism

and weapons of mass destruction that now face our country.

Ultimately, during the emergencies, the Governor is responsible

for the restoration of normalcy to the citizens of his State.

Before I begin my remarks on the status of domestic preparedness, I must commend Congressman Shays and the National Security Subcommittee for taking the time to come into the field and

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hear from those who are truly at the forefront of this battle. We

thank you for this.

It is my hope that the exercise the Connecticut Military Department and the city of Bridgeport designed and conducted will help

focus the need to get critical resources to the local, State and first

responders.

We learned clearly from the Park City terrorism exercise that

there is insufficient detection, decontamination, communications

and personal protection equipment on the front lines.

Additionally, first responders in the local and State agencies lack

access to full training and exercise resources. Without the State

and Federal financial assistance of the Connecticut Office of Emergency Management, this exercise would not have been possible. All

exercise participants unanimously agreed that more exercises are

sorely needed. And it is my commitment to design and execute as

many as possible within our current limited resources.

In addition to insufficient resources, we are certainly confusing

our local officials with too many agencies with too many roles. Terrorism incident recovery must remain based on the Federal response plan and utilize established emergency management channels to move assistance to municipalities, much like we heard in

the last presentation. This is no time to scrap a well-known responsive plan.

Simply put, as a Nation we’re not focusing our procedures, agencies, technical capabilities and resources on assisting that very important local incident commander. This is especially true when you

realize that $9.2 billion was spent throughout 40 Federal agencies

on terrorism preparedness last year alone.

In August 1999, the National Guard Bureau submitted a Weapons of Mass Destruction Report to Congress. The report was intended to facilitate an improved level of preparedness for States

and municipalities. The report identified many initiatives. I’d like

to discuss just two of those.

One of the initiatives dealt with resident and distant learning

training. With the help of Congress, the National Guard can continue to expand the national network of Distant Learning Training

Centers that we currently have. Though expanded, the utilization

of these centers has not been utilized, either for weapons of mass

destruction or other terrorist type training.

Another initiative that was highlighted in the study was the

need for community readiness exercises. Community exercises are

an important part of an effective training program. These exercises

should be conducted with local and State procedures down to the

municipality levels and will be established as a base line for readiness. And they also serve to identify needed training and requirement validation.

The National Guard in the State and within the community

should be resourced and responsible to conduct this type of training.

I offer my concern that unless the distribution of Federal assets

is coordinated and prioritized, it may become a program of haves

and have-nots to those that it is intended to assist.

Specifically as an example, I call attention to the Department of

Defense’s Domestic Preparedness Program. This program provided

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valuable ‘‘Train the Trainer’’ type instruction to civilian first responders. It targeted 120 cities throughout the Nation. Although

the Massachusetts cities of Springfield, Worcester, Boston, and

Providence, Rhode Island, were selected for participation, not one

Connecticut city was selected.

I also point out the Governor’s concern for a lack of an assigned

weapons of mass destruction or civil support team here in the State

of Connecticut. These teams formerly known as the RAID teams,

like the one that we see demonstrated or displayed throughout this

hall, are National Guard assets intended to be quickly deployed to

technically advise the onsite incident commander and provide onsite laboratory analysis. A total of 27 teams have been allocated to

date. Connecticut has not received or been authorized a team.

Earlier in my testimony I stated that ultimately it is the Governor that is responsible to restore normalcy to our residents, to direct a rapid response to save lives. Resourced properly, our National Guard can quickly respond to a local weapons of mass destruction incident and help protect first responders and the public

from difficult times, to detect chemicals and biological agents in

support of the incident commander or the first responders onsite.

It is the position of Governor Rowland, the Adjutant Generals

Association of the United States, the National Guard Association of

the United States and myself that a weapons of mass destruction

civil support team be authorized and funded for each State within

the continental United States.

Once again, Mr. Chairman, I thank you for the opportunity to

testify before the committee today. I’d be happy to answer any

questions that you have.

I’d also like at this time just to additionally thank you on behalf

of all the members in Connecticut for the outstanding work that

your staff has done in cooperation with our Federal plan and the

assistance that it’s rendered in our legislative actions.

Thank you very much, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, General. General, you have been a pleasure to work with. And my staff has appreciated the opportunity to

work with you and your staff. And, again, to thank you publicly for

helping to fund that exercise. That was—you made it happen. So

thank you.

[The prepared statement of General Cugno follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Dr. Lee.

STATEMENT OF DR. HENRY C. LEE, COMMISSIONER,

DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY

Dr. LEE. Good morning, Congressman Shays, Congressman

Tierney. I want to first thank you both to provide me this opportunity to testify in front of the hearing.

An act of terrorism is not only the direct physical action caused

by an individual or a group, but is also the psychological weapon

which threatens the quality of life for every citizen in this State

and also in our country.

Last Friday’s exercise was a successful one. I want to thank all

the personnel who participated in this exercise; a job well done. I

also want to thank you for your leadership and support of this important mission.

After last Friday’s exercise, we noticed there are some important

things we have to pay attention; that’s the first responders. The

quicker the response with the containment of any device, the better

chance we will have.

The special training and special equipment for the law enforcement, police, fire services, hospital and emergency services personnel to respond to those events are urgently needed. Additional

training and planning has enabled us to manage not only actual

criminal action but threat of such action of fake devices, with a

minimum disruption and impact of our community.

The State police, we cover almost two-thirds of the State. Also,

we’re the primary law enforcement agency in approximately half of

the 169 towns and communities in our State. So our department

not only is supporting agency, also the first responders.

The State Police Emergency Services Unit is responsible for providing bomb squad response to 166 towns. In 1999, we responded

to 419 calls. Those calls were a variety of suspicious package/device, but do consist of 50 live improvised explosive devices.

Also during the last year, we were responsible for five threats of

biological weapons and one attempt to create a deadly toxin, Ricin.

This event—those events are becoming more prevalent because of

the increase of public and media attention to the subject area and

the limited ability of the first responder to safely identify and to

mitigate those threats.

Our emergency unit provides 24-hours-a-day services. And average response time is about 1 hour. The response provides a minimum disruption to the normal activity of the citizens of the State.

In addition, our traffic squad, our hazardous mat squad, our fire

marshal’s office, also the forensic laboratory are also ready to assist

any State, Federal, local requests for emergency services.

We know the response time is so important. So the department

took the initiative and Governor Rowland and the Connecticut

State Legislature also assist to authorize a special bonding package

to build an ESU facility in Cheshire. That’s going to be a centrally

located facility so we can give a shorter response time to handle all

the emergency requests to the State and local community.

The Federal Government has been successful in warning of the

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ever, just like General Cugno cited, there are 120 cities throughout

our country to be funded for training for this domestic terrorism

and weapons of mass destruction. There is no city in Connecticut

included in that plan.

In addition, there is no provision to provide the State and local

agencies with additional equipment and training for such response.

As a law enforcement agency and the first responder, I would request assistance of the Federal Government to consider the following. The first is additional training for all the agencies. Second, to

provide the necessary equipment for the responding officer. Myself

responded to quite a few incidents before. When the Federal investigators show up, they’re like the man from space with all kind of

gear. When we respond, we have nothing.

This year, about a month ago, 2 months ago, in West Hartford

we had an incident. The whole State—State police only have few

portable suits and one testing kit. That’s why it’s so important

which the committee can consider those.

In addition to that is to provide the equipment for forensic laboratory to handle the scene and collect evidence and to put those

criminals behind bars.

Thank you very much.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Dr. Lee.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Lee follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Dr. Garcia.

STATEMENT OF DR. JOXEL GARCIA, COMMISSIONER,

DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH

Dr. GARCIA. Good morning, Chairman Shays.

Mr. SHAYS. Good morning. If you moved it on the other side since

you’re kind of—that would be great. Thank you. That’s great.

Thank you.

Dr. GARCIA. Like this?

Mr. SHAYS. That’s perfect.

Dr. GARCIA. OK. Good morning, Chairman Shays and Congressman Tierney. My name is Dr. Joxel Garcia. I’m the Commissioner

for the Department of Public Health, State of Connecticut. And I

thank you for the opportunity to talk about bio-terrorism. I’m going

to be very brief. So——

Bio-terrorism is a priority for Governor Rowland’s administration, giving Connecticut’s unique characteristics and location, industry, nuclear power plants, military bases and also our universities, very successful universities, especially in our basketball

teams. So it’s not if we are going to have an event like this. It’s

when it’s going to happen.

I’m going to limit my testimony to matters related to public

health in terms of domestic preparedness, how prepared the Connecticut Public Health community is and ways to improve Federal

support of local and State efforts.

In terms of assessment of Federal efforts to combat terrorism,

our department and Connecticut has benefited from Federal funding. We just received a grant from CDC for the amount of

$717,000. Those funds were critical to develop the health alert network and the distant learning program and also to upgrade our

lab, our public health lab, to handle infectious disease agents related to bio-terrorism.

At the same time, when we received this funding, we were able

to identify some funding needs and some gaps in our State. Several

positions to develop a full State plan are needed. We need full-time

bio-terrorism coordination, staffing to enable development of epidemiologic surveillance for outbreaks of unusual illness. And we

also—bringing back the point that was mentioned before, develop

and maintain a network of emergency room providers for detection

and rapid reporting of unusual clusters of illness.

We also have to develop educational materials and response scenarios relating to the full spectrum of agents that could be used for

bio-terrorism. We also need a state-of-the-art State lab that will be

able to deal with any bio-terrorism crisis or event.

In terms of how we see the appropriate role of Federal agencies

in both crisis and consequence management, we think the Federal

Government’s involvement in domestic preparedness is essential

and developing models of educational and response materials. We

need to assure minimum standards and capacity, not only statewide but nationwide.

The Federal Government should assure and manage us with a

stockpile of vaccines and antibiotics for adequate supplies for all

the States, and the ability to mobilize resources, expertise and speVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:04 May 24, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00078 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\68547.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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cial equipment to assure that capacity, also to help in criminal investigations.

How we see the State and local role, we see ourselves as a crisis

detection, initial response and ongoing management can be best

done at the local and State level. Detection and investigation of

outbreaks of illness, medical management of persons exposed and/

or injured in a terrorist event, communication to health care providers and entire population, monitoring the events that are happening and collaboration between the State and Federal personnel

is critical. And no simply formula for who is in charge has been

presented.

The State of preparedness in Connecticut. I think Connecticut

right now, we think—we’re sure has been closer now than ever to

be prepared for bio-terrorism event. We have been getting some experience with the events such as Y2K, the West Nile Virus and

others. But still, not all needs have been met.

I think planning and coordination on a State and local level is

very essential. Assessment of needs at all levels is also essential.

And in terms of the results of Friday’s exercise, I think we need

a better comprehensive State plan, a need for more training. It has

been mentioned before. We need better coordination, an excellent

way of coordination between the State agencies.

Hospital preparedness is a big issue. I think we have to work in

a better hospital preparedness. And in terms of proposals to improve the Federal support, I think, like everybody has mentioned

before, we need funding from the Federal Government for—to support all identified needs. Federal leaders must continue to work the

States to bring them up to minimum expected preparedness status.

And Federal Government agencies must continue to involve public

health and other appropriate stakeholders in all future planning.

So I thank you for this opportunity. And I would be available for

questions.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Dr. Garcia.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Garcia follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Rocque.

STATEMENT OF ARTHUR ROCQUE, JR., COMMISSIONER,

DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

Mr. ROCQUE. Chairman Shays, Mr. Tierney, good morning.

Mr. SHAYS. Good morning.

Mr. ROCQUE. My name is Arthur Rocque. My voice is not a result

of mustard gas. So—I was not at the event on Friday, but I do appreciate the opportunity to testify as long as the voice holds out

today.

As commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection,

I supervise a 24-hour communications response team with a mobile

lab and a decontamination system. These staff are trained to

OSHA Level 40 level response. And within a fairly short period of

time, we can put another hundred contractors in the field with the

same level of training.

Last year, for example, we responded to 2200 emergency response incidents. In all of these events—and I think a common

theme that has gone through the discussions here this morning—

communication is the key. To build on the metaphor from this

morning’s panel, let me suggest and remind you that Paul Revere

never made it to Lexington, let alone Concord.

So, if communication is the key, what do we need? We need the

same equipment. We need the same protocols. We need a clear

chain of command. We need a clear assignment of responsibilities.

And if, for example, the Department of Environmental Protection

is a primary hazardous materials responder, we need to be able to

participate in the on-scene command centers.

Training is the second key. For example, if you are trained to

wear and operate in a Level A suit but you don’t maintain your

training and your certification, when the crisis comes, you’re not

going to know what to do or how to do it. So we need to concentrate

on those who have the need and the opportunity to maintain their

certification.

In short, gentlemen, what we really need is we need additional

training. We need additional resources. It is my opinion—I think

I share that with many of my colleagues here on the panel. It is

my opinion that, rather than duplicate those efforts up and down,

it’s more important to concentrate them and make them deployable

in a real time and real way.

Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Mr. Rocque.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Rocque follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Chief Sandford, before you make your statement, I

just want to say that we’re having this hearing, in part, in large

measure because the firefighters had come to me statewide and

met with me in Fairfield and had argued about their wanting to

fund a $5-billion bill down in Washington. And I’m reluctant to do

that.

But what I did say was I’d love to be able to target funding for

specific needs like this. And—but at any rate, we’re here, in part,

because of the request of your men.

STATEMENT OF WAYNE SANDFORD, CONNECTICUT

REPRESENTATIVE, NEW ENGLAND FIRE CHIEFS

Chief SANDFORD. OK. My name is Wayne Sandford. I’m the fire

chief in East Haven, CT. And I would again like to begin by thanking the committee for inviting me to participate.

If I can in any way convince you to support that bill in Washington, I would be a hero in Connecticut’s fire service. My colleagues

and I take domestic violence very importantly. And I think as an

example to show you how it is in the smaller communities, East

Haven is about 12 miles in size, 12 square miles. We have 26,000

people. Not only am I the fire chief, I am the director of emergency

operations and I am also the chairman of the local emergency planning committee. So in a smaller community, many, many people do

more and more jobs than we are—than you see at the larger facilities or larger cities around the State.

So we’re responsible for a broad array of emergency services,

from responding with EMT’s to medical calls, to handling incidents

on the railroad tracks or to handling something on I–95 or something with an airplane crashing. It doesn’t really matter what it is.

We’re there.

And in most of these incidents, we have what we consider a golden hour. That first 1 hour that an incident occurs is what’s the

most important. And during that hour, we are calling for everyone

that we can possibly to respond to those scenes because we are a

small department. And we rely heavily on the State Office of Emergency Management and we rely heavily on the State Department

of Environmental Protection because we don’t have anyone else to

do those kinds of things. So that golden hour is really critical to

us.

In that hour, we need to be able to identify what we have. Before

we ship our patients into Yale-New Haven Hospital or St. Raphael’s Hospital in New Haven, it’s important that we notify them

what we have, what we think we have, what these people may

have. And without any type of detection equipment, lacking to

identify exactly what we’re dealing with, it’s extremely complicated

and becomes more hazardous.

And you think that maybe in a small town things like this don’t

happen. In my short tenure as chief, in 8 years we’ve had one incident where an individual made a bomb, brought it home, told his

mother not to touch the bag. She touched the bag and blew her

arm off. At that incident, we had both the State Fire Marshal’s Office, DEP and State Office of Emergency Management involved in

that incident.

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Saturday, I was up in the great city of Boston, walking around

with my daughter in Quincy Market. My beeper goes off and they

tell me that we have a bomb incident at one of our House of Representatives, State House of Representatives, homes in my community. And I’m wondering what’s going on. I’m up in Boston. I’m trying on my cell phone to get back to them. And I’m in an Old Navy

store up in Boston.

And here’s my firefighter standing on the street, unable to talk

to anyone else that’s responding to the calls, except for the local police department because we can talk locally. And I’m standing

there and I look at a store aide in Old Navy that needs a pair of

dungarees in the back room. And that sales clerk gets on a headset, on a radio, calls in the back room—I’m not going to tell you

what size I wore—and they run right out with this pair of dungarees. And I’m saying isn’t this ironic? At the same time, my firefighters can’t talk to the State Department of Environmental Protection, the State Fire Marshal’s Office that are responding to this

bomb incident in my community. I’m ordering a pair of dungarees

and someone could talk to the back room and get me those dungarees. I think that’s appallable for the fire service that somebody

like Old Navy that’s in business to sell dungarees can—actually

has a better communication system than we have and we have to

deal with lives.

And I think that really targets toward what we need in the fire

service or emergency management. And that is the front line people, we need to have a good communication system. We need to be

able to talk to DEP. We need to be able to talk to the State Fire

Marshal’s Office and the Office of Emergency Management from

the scene. We need equipment to do monitoring. We have to be able

to tell in that golden hour exactly what we have.

And we’ve taken some of the training that’s offered through the

State Fire Academy. Our State Fire Academy does a great job. We

have four courses now that are available for weapons of mass destruction. But we need to get them out further. It’s very difficult

to train the volunteers. We need more ‘‘Train the Trainers’’ programs so that I can train my local training officer and then provide

him with the workbooks so he can come home to the local fire department and then train my volunteers in the evening hours and

then train my small staff of career personnel during the daytime.

So we need additional training. We need additional equipment.

We need additional communication releasing. You know, we’re so

close to New York City—we can’t get frequencies in this area. You

go down and say, ‘‘I want to apply to FCC to increase your ability

to move to a different frequency’’, you can’t get a frequency in this

part of the country. There aren’t any available.

We need to do something with the band widths so that we can

increase the number of frequencies so that emergency personnel—

that I can talk to the people that I need to talk to.

And, finally, I would add that we need to do something with the

Incident Command System. Saturday, when the State Fire Marshal’s Office arrived in East Haven, they found the Incident Command System established and well in place. And I think you’ll find

that in any town across the country where the fire department is

there.

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We need to train the people from the Department of Health so

they know who to report to so they can become part of our Incident

Command System. They need to be trained in Incident—in ICS.

DEP people, the Department of Environmental Protection, we work

well with them now. They’ve been trained in Incident Command

System. We need to train other agencies as well so they know how

to plug in and fit in to our communication or command system.

I think if I could leave with one line, I would say that we must

strengthen our first responders and we must strengthen the first

responders first because they’re there. They’ve got that golden

hour. And they need a hand to control that incident.

Thank you very much.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much, Chief.

Mr. Tierney.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

I guess I’m wondering if part of the problem isn’t that everything

needs to be paid for and everybody wants everybody else to pay for

it. You know, whether the local communities are seen as being the

first responders and the Federal and State levels are just saying,

‘‘Well, they should have to pay for it’’ and then, you know, so on

up the line. And if that doesn’t need to be squared away, at least

in part——

General, let me ask you, if you had a so-called RAID light team

or a civil team or a RAID team here, how would the operation on

Friday have gone differently?

General CUGNO. First on the RAID light, the RAID light I’m not

a big fan of. RAID light is only one full-time person, no equipment

and 22 what they refer to as M-day or part-time traditional guardsmen.

Mr. SHAYS. That’s very light.

General CUGNO. That’s much too light. Yes, sir.

RAID Heavy, what we see here in this room, is the only thing

that I think has any value for our State or an adjutant general or

our Governor. The reason is these are very professional, very hightech individuals and they’re very competitive. You’re not likely to

get them to be in a traditional position on a part-time basis. It’s

bad enough you’ve got to work real hard to get them on a full-time

basis.

It’s a RAID heavy team that is necessary in each of the States,

like you currently have in Mass. In the New England area, just recently one was authorized to Maine.

Mr. TIERNEY. Well, how would it have gone differently on Friday

had you had a Connecticut team that was here? Would your operation have gone differently time-wise or——

General CUGNO. Well, since we played real time on Friday and

none of them currently stood up or have been certified, I’ll use that,

the first 10 that Congress authorized were intended to be certified

on the first of April 2000. They’re not. The equipment is not fully

fielded. I think the last—some more pieces are coming on April 9th

according to what I’ve been briefed on from Washington.

Let’s make the assumption that there’s a fully capable and ready

asset RAID team and you had an incident like that. The way we

operate—in fact, this group here at the table—this is a reunion for

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an emergency situation. This is what we do, with a few other players.

When a town has an incident and immediate first responders

would deploy, it’s likely to be the fire department, that individual

being in charge. An immediate request would go through to the Office of Emergency Management and we would deploy. They have a

requirement, weapons of mass destruction teams, the support

teams have a requirement to deploy within 4 hours. So they’re onscene and deployed.

If I had one here and it was 2001 or 2002 and it was fully certified and trained, that would deploy.

What they have is the ability to do detection and to do analytical

work. They assess the situation. One of the pieces of equipment

soon to be fielded—in fact, the fielding date for the Mass one I believe is April 9th—is a mobile laboratory. The lab can tell you exactly and precisely what the agent is so you know what you’re dealing with. So that is the intention.

Mr. SHAYS. General, I—but the bottom line, though, and the

question is I’m not sure Friday would have been all that different

if you had had a RAID team.

General CUGNO. No. If I had a RAID team—we played a RAID

team in the exercise, also, sir. Mass RAID Commander was at and

part of the exercise. So we used as though he deployed for Massachusetts.

Mr. SHAYS. But took 4 hours to get here?

General CUGNO. Well, yes. But the incident is different like this.

If there is a deployment in Mass and he is not available, you don’t

have a team. If there are multiple incidents in the Northeast, you

don’t have a team. So I question the ability to rely on the team if

you don’t have it.

The additional—in other exercises, the agent has been dispersed—exercises that have been written and planned and executed, the agent has been dispersed into the air. If it happened in

Connecticut and you’re downwind, I’m not sure they’re going to

want to send their team, for obvious reasons.

I think that the argument could be made, yes, you could go and

95—93 percent of the country right now has indicated that in 4

hours they can have a RAID team from the current locations. I’m

not certain that they can deploy within that amount of time. And

I haven’t seen evidence that they can.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

Mr. Rocque, you made a comment that I want to make sure I

didn’t misconstrue; something about the idea that you thought that

we ought to be doing things on a more regional basis.

Mr. ROCQUE. That’s correct.

Mr. TIERNEY. So that you wouldn’t necessarily invest your resources of making sure that every town had all the first response

items. But you would rather see it focused on some place that could

get—disperse those towns on a ready basis?

Mr. ROCQUE. That is—that’s correct. I think that, for example,

our mobile lab and decontamination system could be anywhere in

the State within 2 hours at the very outside. Obviously, if you have

multiple incidents as Major General Cugno just suggested, it

makes it a little bit more difficult. But it is incredibly expensive to

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run and operate these types of field units. And to have one in every

single town I think would be redundant and overly expensive.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, all set.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

I don’t want to spend a lot of time talking about the RAID team.

But I am now beginning to wonder what the RAID team would

have done on Friday and why we need it. So I’m not sure—do we

have someone here who can basically answer that question? I

mean—gentlemen, I mean I’m not—do you hear my question?

General CUGNO. I—unfortunately, I can’t tell you how long it

took—we can get an answer just by turning around just for a second here—— Mr. SHAYS. Sure.

General CUGNO [continuing]. With Mr. Wiltse, who was part of

it and the exercise facilitator that was here. How long it took for

the detection of the item would be key.

Mr. SHAYS. OK.

General CUGNO. And how quickly they were able to assess that.

Mr. SHAYS. Why don’t we do this? While I’m asking some other

questions, if you can just leave the table and just check that question? I think I’d want the record to be able to respond to that. OK?

General CUGNO. OK. Fine.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

I’m a little unclear how you all work. And when you said this

was a reunion, who is missing from this table? Do all of you work

with each other on this very issue? I realize, Mr. Sandford, you’re

representing the statewide position. But the State officials here—— Dr. GARCIA. We have worked together. We have worked together

from the Y2K issues to West Nile to readiness for a while now. I

have been Commissioner only 10 months and already I’ve been seeing these people very frequently now. So—— Mr. SHAYS. Fair enough.

Dr. GARCIA. And not socially, sir.

Dr. LEE. Well, in general, when we have an incident, we usually

work together, such as weather condition or emergency situation.

Also, State Police with local police and local fire department, we

also work together. It’s a small State. Any time they have a suspicious device, as I indicated to you, we basically respond to most

of the requests. If a situation involves a State emergency related

to health, we all work together and have a State emergency management center.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. The key question is what resources need to reside at the local level and what at the State? And I’m interested

to know—and, Mr. Rocque, you basically are—obviously, if you can

get all resources locally and you can afford to and you can train

people and so on, you do that. But what are the kind of resources

that are, in your judgment, more likely to—that you would say it’s

a better allocation of resources to doing a regional?

Mr. ROCQUE. A lot of this is like looking into a crystal ball, unfortunately. And we’re never going to know what the incident is until

after it’s happened. I think that’s what history has taught us.

I would say that the more unlikely scenarios are best responded

to, or the more complicated are best responded to, by State reVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:04 May 24, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00097 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\68547.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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sources. For example, I used the example of Level A suit certification, self-contained breathing apparatus. Our folks are trained in

those and are recertified periodically. To train everybody at the

local level for that capability is probably not necessary. So those

are the types of things.

I think the mobile lab, for example—our lab has not as good capability, perhaps, as some of the RAID units in terms of biological

analysis but it certainly in terms of chemical analysis does have

state-of-the-art type equipment. And I think that rather than have

those deployed locally, you can deploy them, in a State like Connecticut that’s as small as Connecticut, fairly readily at the State

level.

Mr. SHAYS. Chief, do you want to——

Chief SANDFORD. I would definitely agree with the Commissioner

that—when I said that we need things on the local level, I’m certainly not inferring that we need a decontamination unit in every

community. We’ve run a number of drills in East Haven where

we’ve asked the State Department of Environmental Protection to

participate so that our people will know exactly how that equipment operates.

On the local level, the type of equipment is something—meters

and monitoring tools so that my people don’t become those second

victims. So that when we respond to that anthrax incident, you

know, that’s distributed on Friday afternoon and brought home to

the people in East Haven over the weekend and Sunday afternoon

my medical teams start responding to a whole bunch of calls for

cold symptoms or flu symptoms, that my people know immediately

when they start monitoring—when it’s going it on the calls, that

we’ve got something going on. They need a way of determining exactly what that is.

And the sooner that we know what it is, then the sooner that we

can communicate that to the hospitals and we can begin calling assistance through the State Department of Environmental Protection, through the Office of Emergency Management. Those are the

types of things that we need on a local level.

Not every firefighter in the State of Connecticut, in my opinion,

needs to be trained in how to operate in a Level A suit. I would

not agree with that. That’s available from a team from the State

or from a regional team. But we need to know what that is as soon

as possible.

Mr. SHAYS. OK.

Dr. Garcia, I used to chair the subcommittee that oversaw the

health, HHS and FDA and Center for Disease Control and so in,

Institutes of Health. It became very real to me that your position

is going to become more and more important as the years come, go

by, with the various viruses that we’ll have to deal with. Are you

being brought into—do we have the same problem on the State

level that we appear to have on the local level with health departments not really being recognized in terms of the kind of role

they’re going to need to play?

Dr. GARCIA. I think what has happened is the uniqueness of the

State in terms of the local health departments, we have a multitude of them and there’s not a real regional communication center

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in between all the local health departments. And I think that was

mentioned before.

At the State level, meanwhile, we work very closely with the institutions and the 35 hospitals that we have in our State. There is

the Connecticut Hospital Association. And we try to not only have

good communication but share data and be able to relay in terms

of any event that happens at the local level.

I think one of the concerns that we have, a significant concern

that we have, is we need a lab that actually can be prepared to

deal with all the new viruses and other biological issues that are

happening. We have had events in which we were relying on the

CDC or the lab in Atlanta. And there was a significant backlog

there. So it has to be sent back to us.

And I think that that’s one of the messages that I’m trying to

send; is that we really need a State lab that can help the institutions here, the hospitals here, as well as the local health departments.

We’re right now at the beginning of having a network—that’s the

HAN, Health Alert Network—in which we can be able to have instant access either by way of computers or safe communication in

between the local health departments and us so we can actually

use the health departments as our arms to be able to inform us

much, much greater.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

I’m going to—before we just close out this panel with the RAID

team, I’m just going to ask this scenario. I’m just going to ask two

individuals whose responses—Dr. Lee or General Cugno. Terrorists

have decided that they’re going to do one of two things. They’re either going to steal waste, radiation waste, in Millstone 1, 2 and 3

or they basically have decided to come in and take over the site

and threaten blowing it up.

And, quickly, does that become—is that a State Police? Is that

a local police problem? Is that a military problem?

Dr. LEE. Most likely, the local police responds first. Right away,

they’re going to call us. We would have a SWAT team. We’d have

the Emergency Services Unit. State Police more likely to take over

the situation.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. And do you—do you have, for instance, the

plans, the floor plans, of Millstone 1, 2 and 3?

Dr. LEE. We have all those floor plans, all those emergency response plans. And, again, you know, just—planning is excellent.

And you need additional resources to equip our SWAT team. We

just—you know, 166 towns need us.

Mr. SHAYS. Are you comfortable that they’re properly guarded by

the company?

Dr. LEE. It’s relatively. Nobody can predict what’s going to happen. We have an intelligence unit in our State police working with

Federal agencies working on that.

Mr. SHAYS. OK.

Mr. Rocque.

Mr. ROCQUE. I thought it would be helpful to point out that

under your scenario, actually the four of us would be involved almost instantaneously. The Department of Environmental Protection is responsible for the statewide radiation emergency impleVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:04 May 24, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00099 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\68547.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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mentation. And we would automatically get in touch with Dr. Garcia and his staff and put them on call.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Thank you.

General.

General CUGNO. I’d have to concur. Definitely, it would be a law

enforcement one. And I’d be happy to pass that one over to the doctor.

Mr. SHAYS. Yes. You know, the problem is Mr. Tierney would be

concerned of whether that event with Millstone 1, 2 or 3 would ultimately impact the people in Massachusetts. So I would imagine

that it would become quickly a military concern as well.

General CUGNO. Yes. We—one of the plans that the Connecticut

Military Department and the Office of Emergency Management

practices deals with Millstone evaluation plans, Dr. Lee, the Connecticut State Police——

Mr. SHAYS. OK.

General CUGNO [continuing]. And us as——

Mr. SHAYS. Good. I’m happy to know that. Let me just have you

conclude then by telling me what do you think would be different

if we had had a RAID team locally?

General CUGNO. The exercise revealed—and I’m going by lessons

learned from the exercise—that the detection and decontamination,

we had the inability, even with the DEP mobile lab. Mass RAID

team was never deployed, never got the scene. And we had inability to quickly detect or determine what the specifics of the agent

were.

Now to specifically answer your question, had we had a RAID

team fully operational here in the State of Connecticut—and by

that I mean to acceptable readiness standards—within 1 hour, the

agent would have been at least identified. The mobile lab is but one

piece, evidenced by some of the things that are here in the hallway.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me ask you, why would it have been, though—

I mean what—you have an explosion on a train. What tells you

that you’re going to call a nuclear, biological or RAID team to come

and get involved? I mean I don’t know what would have triggered

that.

General CUGNO. The incident, people became ill. That was—there

was a buildup to it as people became—that was part of the scenario.

Mr. SHAYS. Right. But—so you’re not going to call them the first

half-hour, first hour. You really are not. You know? I don’t think.

So I don’t think you would——

General CUGNO. I think what happened in the exercise, though,

was the responders became casualties immediately. The first responders, the local fire department and police department, responded to the incident. Immediately they became casualties. They

would certainly deploy the team.

Mr. SHAYS. But I’d be interested—I’m going to get to the next

panel. But you had mentioned that this vehicle here would be a

helpful vehicle to have. I’m just wondering if a RAID team light

doesn’t have merit. It’s just your definition of how light do you

make it. Obviously, no equipment and one person, that’s not—

that’s kind of absurd. But, you know, some equipment, five peoVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:04 May 24, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00100 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\68547.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ple—you know? So think about it. And I may ask you to come

back——

General CUGNO. Sure.

Mr. SHAYS [continuing]. After the last panel and——

General CUGNO. Yes, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. And I don’t—I may even ask one or two other of your

people to join you on that issue. And maybe even some of the RAID

team people here from Massachusetts.

So I thank you all. Is there any last question that—yes, Chief?

Chief SANDFORD. I think Commissioner Rocque definitely

brought out a point. And that is that there are some excellent

things out there that could be enhanced rather than starting something new.

And I bring to point one issue. And that is the Department of

Transportation has a wonderful program called project response.

And they have this system and they’re putting it on-line. So from

a communications center or from a laptop on scene, you’ll be able

to dial in and you give them the number of the train and they’ll

actually be able to tell you what is being carried in every car of

that train.

If we were to enhance that program and bring it into the—maybe

the over-the-road haulers, over the highways, that certainly

would—it’s an example of something that could be enhanced rather

than starting a program anew. And that would be something that

would be very helpful for us on the scene.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

Any other comments anyone wants to make before we get to our

next panel?

I thank you very much. And we’ll call our next panel. And I

think what I’m going to do—Mr. Tierney is going to have to leave

in about an hour. So we’re going to go through that next panel and

make sure he asks his questions. But I may ask some people from

the RAID team to join you and let’s have a little more dialog about

that.

General CUGNO. Fine.

Mr. SHAYS. So maybe you could get, you know, heads together

with them.

General CUGNO. I certainly will.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Thank you.

Our next panel—and thank you all very much. We appreciate

your help here.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Bruce Baughman, Director, Operations Division,

Response and Recovery Directorate, Federal Emergency Management Agency; Mr. Robert Burnham, Section Chief, Domestic Terrorism, Federal Bureau of Investigation; BG Bruce Lawlor—that

BG is——

General LAWLOR. Brigadier General.

Mr. SHAYS. Brigadier General. I’m sorry. General Bruce Lawlor,

Commanding General, Joint Task Force, Civil Support, U.S. Department of Defense.

Mr. Gary Moore, Acting Deputy Director, Office of Emergency

Preparedness, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services;

and Mr. Kenneth Stroech, Deputy Emergency Coordinator, ChemiVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:04 May 24, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00101 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\68547.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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cal Emergency Preparedness and Prevention Office, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

I’m going to ask you all to stay standing and I’ll swear you in.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

Note for the record everyone has responded in the affirmative.

I just need to confer with Mr. Tierney just for a second. And we’ll

have like a 1-minute break.

[Discussion off the record.]

Mr. SHAYS. We’re going to just go down the list. And we’ll start

with you, Mr. Baughman. And I do appreciate your being the third

panel and having to wait and so on. I would be grateful if you’d

be able to, in your testimony, incorporate some of the questions and

points you’ve heard to give it more relevancy. And, also, if there

are questions we haven’t been asking that we should, I want to

make sure we do that.

So, Mr. Baughman, you have the floor.

STATEMENT OF BRUCE BAUGHMAN, DIRECTOR, OPERATIONS

AND PLANNING DIVISION, RESPONSE AND RECOVERY DIRECTORATE, FEMA

Mr. BAUGHMAN. Good morning, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me just see. Why don’t you move that mic over

and use the one to your——

Mr. BAUGHMAN. This one here?

Mr. SHAYS. Yes.

Mr. BAUGHMAN. OK. Can you hear me?

Mr. SHAYS. Yes.

Mr. BAUGHMAN. OK. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members

of the subcommittee. I’m Bruce Baughman, Director——

Mr. SHAYS. Excuse me. Do you have that mic on? This is the first

one. OK. There you go. Thank you.

Mr. BAUGHMAN. I’m Bruce Baughman. I’m Director of Operations

and Planning for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. I

appreciate the opportunity to appear before the subcommittee and

discuss our readiness to respond to consequences of terrorism. I

will focus, as you’ve asked, on the appropriate role of the Federal

Government in both crisis and consequence management and on

the assessment of Federal programs to combat terrorism and, finally, on proposals to improve the Federal Government’s ability to

respond.

FEMA’s role in terrorism and all other hazards is twofold. First,

we provide grants, technical assistance and information to State

and local government and the fire community. Second, we respond

to incidents as called upon by State and local government.

The Federal Government is responsible for crisis response—and

I’m going to defer to Mr. Burnham to address our role in that

arena. I’ll confine my remarks to consequence management, which

FEMA has the lead responsibility under the Presidential Decision

Directive.

First off, State and local governments have primary responsibility for consequence management. When consequences of an event

exceed the capability of State and local government and FEMA is

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called upon to respond, we deliver our assistance under the Federal

response plan.

This plan organizes 26 Federal agencies and departments and

the American Red Cross into interagency functions and teams to

mesh with their counterparts at the affected State and local level.

This framework enables local, State and Federal officials to best

use the available resources.

The Federal response plan has been used to respond to all emergencies and major disasters declared by the President since 1992,

including those caused by floods, hurricanes, earthquakes and terrorist events, such as Oklahoma City.

Our ongoing work to strengthen the Federal response plan fits

the approach that Director Witt has given the agency: to focus

more on programs that address requirements common to all risks

and less on programs that address requirements unique to one hazard.

Whether the cause is a hurricane, earthquake or terrorist attack,

consequences are largely the same; mass casualties, property damage and disruption of essential services.

Building stronger, all-risk response capability reduces the impact

of hazard-unique shortfalls on the overall outcome of a Federal response.

In terrorism consequence management, the hazard-unique requirement we need to address is the capability to deal with nuclear, biological and chemical contamination. Certain Federal agencies are key to this; the Department of Energy, the Department of

Health and Human Services, the Environmental Protection Agency

and the Department of Defense.

The challenge we face under the plan is getting the right hazardspecific resource to the right place at the right time. We have a

mechanism to do that within the Federal response plan.

The other requirement imposed by a terrorist event is the need

for coordination between crisis management and consequence management. Since Oklahoma City, we have developed a closer working relationship with the FBI on the Federal response side. Together we have worked with our common support agencies on a

first and second edition of a Terrorism Incident Annex to the Federal response plan.

This Annex describes the structure and information flow which

transpires between the two agencies when there is a terrorist

event. Our relationship is more than just words on paper. We have

exercised our coordination relationship on two major Federal, State

and local exercises and on such special events as 1996 Summer

Olympics, the 1997 Presidential Inauguration and the 1999 NATO

50th Anniversary Summit.

The working relationships and practical experience we have

gained should make all the difference in the world when we’re

called upon to respond to a terrorist incident.

To address the effectiveness of Federal programs, two key issues

need to be addressed. Are State and local governments prepared,

trained and properly equipped to respond? And I think that you got

some insightful testimony this morning that shows the status of

that.

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The second is, are Federal agencies charged to support them

properly trained, equipped and ready? I’m not sure that there’s a

simple and satisfactory answer. I note that those of us who are in

the business of consequence management must be ready for any

hazard at any time. We must strike a balance between all-hazards

programs and programs designed for one hazard. It is important

for FEMA to maintain that balance.

I think that strengthening existing systems for all hazards has

improved our domestic preparedness and response capability at

each level of government. Consequently, I think that at the Federal

level we are better prepared to handle any response to any hazard

than at any time in our history.

However, I think that there is a real need for a more coordinated

planning, training and exercise strategy by all agencies at all levels

of government to deal with weapons of mass destruction.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’d be happy to answer any questions.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Mr. Baughman.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Baughman follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Burnham.

STATEMENT OF ROBERT BURNHAM, SECTION CHIEF, FBI DOMESTIC TERRORISM/COUNTER-TERRORISM PLANNING SECTION

Mr. BURNHAM. Thank you, Chairman Shays.

Mr. SHAYS. You just talk and he’ll turn it on as you talk.

Mr. BURNHAM. Chairman Shays, Congressman Tierney, it’s a

pleasure to be here. I’ve submitted a statement outlining essentially what the FBI has done in the way of programs and initiatives over the last couple of years in helping to prepare for terrorist

attacks in the domestic preparedness area.

What I thought I’d do is to go off that a little and just to mention

some statements that were—or touch upon some statements and

areas that were discussed earlier today.

But, first of all, I’d like to talk about the actual threat of a WMD.

Congressman Shays talked about it before, that it’s just a matter

of time. Currently, the FBI considers the threat of a WMD, weapons of mass destruction, terrorist type incident to be low at this

time. That’s not to say that it’s not going to happen or couldn’t happen in the future. The results could be catastrophic.

What that assessment is based on is the fact that—and, again,

when I’m talking about WMD, I’m talking primarily now about

chemical or biological. It’s not because individuals, either domestically or internationally, do not have the intention nor the motivation to do so. I think it deals more with the capability, with the

capability to develop on a mass destruction scale, to develop a

chemical or biological weapon.

We do know from an intelligence standpoint that both domestically and internationally individuals are attempting to develop

that. So it is a matter of time. And our preparedness efforts should

continue on into the future.

Mention was also made this morning about Nunn, Luger,

Domenici and the money being spent in the 120 cities which were

expanded to 157 cities in domestic preparedness training.

Aside from that, the FBI has participated in that over the last

several years. But in our domestic preparedness efforts, we have

not limited ourselves to the Nunn, Luger, Domenici cities. All of

our field offices are actively involved where they were part of the

original 120 or 150 cities.

What we’ve done in our Domestic Preparedness Program is gone

out, designed WMD coordinators in each of our field offices. In addition, we have what we call a key asset infrastructure. And mention was made earlier about a nuclear plant.

What that has involved is having each of our field offices going

out to major chemical plants, to nuclear facility, getting the floor

plans, developing response in the event of a potential terrorist attack. And, again, that’s been ongoing for the last couple of years.

In addition, we’ve also actively participated—and this has been

open to everyone—under Nunn, Luger, Domenici, the Expert Assistance Program is open to everyone. And that’s the Hotline—I indicated that in my statement. The hotline, the help line, the Web

page, which is available to all first responders across the country.

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Mr. Baughman mentioned crisis and consequence management.

We have worked very closely with FEMA over the last several

years. And one of the areas that we have—and I briefly talked

about this on Friday. In the area of crisis and consequence management, oftentimes it’s very difficult to define where does consequence stop, where does crisis start.

Mr. Baughman and I have talked about this before. Oftentimes,

as we did on the exercise on Friday, you had both crisis and consequence at the same time. In recognition of that, what we’ve done

in conjunction with FEMA is the Concept of Operations Plan,

which we’ve worked on very hard with FEMA over the last couple

of years, as well as our other interagency partners at the Federal

level, it was an operation plan developed to implement PDD–39 for

a domestic terrorist or WMD incident, domestic terrorist type incident.

What we’ve done on that is we’ve worked in the ICS system, recognizing that the first responders are going to be State and local

fire departments, the haz/mat people, in full recognition that’s part

of our concept of operation plan, recognizing that when you do have

an ICS, the first responders are going to be there.

What the FBI is going to do is going to roll into it and basically

just work into the incident command structure, a unified command,

be part of it. The on-scene commander is the police department or

the fire department. We fully recognize that. And at such time as

it develops that it may be a potential terrorist incident, then, as

we did on Friday, it may potentially involve into a JOC, but, again,

that’s not going to be in the first 2 to 3 hours.

So that is ongoing. We fully recognize and utilize the incident

command structure, as well as it evolves into our system.

In addition, in the area of intelligence, just very quickly, one of

the things that you would have, was missing on Friday, that you

would have both before, after and during a crisis, you would have

intelligence. And that’s where we are basically the bridge between

the intelligence community and the first responder and the local

law enforcement community.

We have a number of outlets that we ensure that information of

a terrorist type does get to the—in the event that it is going to impact upon State and local, that it will get there. We’ve got the national threat warning system. We’ve got Enless, which goes out to

local law enforcement. We’ve also got our JTTF’s, domestic terrorist

working groups, a number of mediums to ensure that that type of

information does get out to the locals.

And, again, during the incident, having been through a number

of these tabletops, as well as going through some actual incidents,

you will have intelligence coming in as the incident is going on.

That will be shared with the Incident Command Structure. In

other words, I think some mention was earlier made that they

weren’t able to tell, you know, initially whether it was a blister

agent or, you know, what it—if it was VX gas or whatever. That

information that we can get, we ensure that it does get to the local

first responders.

We would have the intelligence component. And we are more or

less the bridge between the first responders and the intelligence

community.

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That’s all I’ve got right now. I’d be more than happy to answer

any questions.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Burnham follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. General Lawlor.

STATEMENT OF BRIGADIER GENERAL BRUCE LAWLOR, U.S.

ARMY COMMANDER

General LAWLOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman,

Congressman Tierney, first of all thank you for inviting me here

today. Your interest and the interest of your committee in this

issue has helped us all move this development along as we grapple

with how to meet this latest threat to our country.

I’m the Commander of the Joint Task Force Civil Support, a recently organized task force under the U.S. Joint Forces Command.

And it is our mission that, upon request from a lead Federal agency and approval by the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Task Force

Headquarters will deploy to the vicinity of a WMD incident and

provide command and control for all Department of Defense forces

that are part of the response effort in support of the lead Federal

agency with a mission to save lives, prevent injury and establish

critical life support.

Mr. SHAYS. General, before you continue, I just would love to——

General LAWLOR. Yes, sir.

Mr. SHAYS [continuing]. Put it in perspective. Do the RAID

teams come under your jurisdiction? Are they totally separate? Are

they a part, not a part? Just kind of give me a sense of your responsibility to help me when I hear your testimony.

General LAWLOR. Sir, the RAID teams are—like all National

Guard Units, they have a dual mission, a Federal mission and a

State mission. They are primarily resting in a State mission status

and would fall under the control of the Governor and the State Adjutant General.

If we were to deploy to an incident site, it is the desire of the

Commander in Chief of the Joint Forces Command, Admiral

Gayman, that the CST teams would not be Federalized, so that

they would remain under State control to the maximum extent possible.

However, if there was a need for additional teams at the site,

which there might well be, then they could be Federalized. And in

the event that they were Federalized from another State, from another area of the country and brought to the site, they would fall

under the operational control of the Joint Task Force.

Mr. SHAYS. So even if the RAID team in the Massachusetts—in

the New England area based in Massachusetts goes into another

State, they’re still going to be under, what, the jurisdiction of that

State as they come in? Will they become under the command of

Governor Rowland? How would that work?

General LAWLOR. It would—in the normal course of events, Mr.

Chairman, the team would be assigned OPConn to the Adjutant

General of the receiving State.

Mr. SHAYS. OK.

General LAWLOR. So that they would fall under the command

and control of Major General Cugno as the Adjutant General of

Connecticut.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. I understand. Thank you.

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And in terms of—just give me a little bit more background as to

what your responsibility is. And then—I’m sorry to interrupt your

testimony.

General LAWLOR. Oh, no, sir. That’s fine.

We are in the process of developing that particular relationship.

As you know, sir, under Title X, responsibility for manning, equipping, training and sustaining the force belongs to the services. I am

a joint command falling directly under Admiral Gayman and reporting directly to the CINC. And in that capacity, I don’t have responsibility for those four functions.

However, we are actively discussing with Forces Command at

this point the development of a relationship whereby we would play

a greater role in the training or, let’s say, in the readiness of the

RAID teams.

For example, validation of the mission requirements, there has

to be an entity that defines what the mission of these teams should

be from the military perspective.

Mr. SHAYS. Let’s just get the RAID teams out now. When the

military in general then comes to a site, do I make an assumption

incorrectly that if there was an incident, say, at Millstone 3 that

became—was viewed as truly a regional threat of gigantic proportions, I make an assumption the military would be playing a role.

Does that come under—how does that—tell me how you impact

that process.

General LAWLOR. Sir, in that event, the State would, through the

Federal Emergency Management Agency, request assistance from

the President. A declaration would be issued. And FEMA would

then establish its response mechanisms under the Federal response

plan.

If there was a need for DOD assistance, there would be a request

made to the Secretary of Defense. He would task the Commander

in Chief of Joint Forces, U.S. Joint Forces Commander to respond.

He, in turn, would task me to be the operational command on the

ground. And it would be my responsibility to deploy to the site and

be prepared to receive additional Federal Department of Defense

forces and provide command and control of those forces in support

of the request that we would anticipate would be made from FEMA

through their normal Federal response plan process.

Mr. SHAYS. Fine. Why don’t you go back to your testimony now?

Thank you.

General LAWLOR. Sir, what I wanted to say was that Secretary

Cohen has enunciated five core principles that govern the operations of the JTF. The first of those is that we are always in support of the lead Federal agency. We are not in command and control of an incident site. We expect that that Federal agency in almost all cases will be the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

And we are structuring ourselves to support that agency in all possible ways.

Second is that there is within the department a close civilian

oversight of all our activities both through a shortened chain of

command—I report directly to the CINC and the CINC, of course,

reports directly to Secretary Cohen—and, also, the creation within

the department of a special office, the Assistant to the Secretary

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of Defense for Civil Support, headed by Ms. Pam Berkowski, who

provides day-to-day civilian oversight of all we do.

Third is that DOD continues its—the Department of Defense continues its focus on the war fight and that the units exist to fight

and win the Nation’s war. What we are doing is bringing skills that

are already inherent in military units to the assistance of local responders through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, if

requested.

Fourth is that there is an important role for the Reserve components to play in response to a weapons of mass destruction incident. One only need look at the dispersion of Reserve component

units throughout the United States, both National Guard and Federal Reserve Forces, to see that these forces are dispersed throughout all of our communities and that we are working very hard

within the Joint Task Force to devise operational concepts that will

enable to bring those forces to the forefront as quickly as possible.

And last, sir, we are specifically charged and do take very seriously that whenever we deploy, one of our paramount concerns is

for the constitutional rights and individual liberties of all Americans. And we believe very strongly that when we leave the area of

an incident site, if those liberties are not as secure as we entered

it, that we have not done our job. Those are Secretary Cohen’s

charge.

I would ask that we understand and recognize the unique role

of the States in managing the response to a consequence—or an incident of this size. And we are existing to support those requirements when they are approved by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Sir, that’s all I have. And I’d be happy to answer any questions

you may have.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, General. Sorry I interrupted you. But it

was very interesting. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of General Lawlor follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Moore.

STATEMENT OF GARY MOORE, DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF

EMERGENCY READINESS AND OPERATIONS

Mr. MOORE. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank

you for inviting me here today to discuss the activities of the Department of Health and Human Services in responding to terrorist

acts and other disasters. I’m Gary Moore. I’m the Director of the

Operations and Readiness in the Office of Emergency Preparedness. I’m also the Acting Deputy Director at this time.

I have submitted testimony. And with your permission, I would

like to have it entered into the record. Today I would just like to

summarize some of those remarks.

Local responders, fire and rescue, police, paramedics and emergency room medical staff, will always be the first to respond to a

disaster or terrorist act in their cities. This is why local capability

and capacity building is absolutely critical to reducing preventable

injuries and deaths caused by terrorist attacks.

DHHS is the primary agency that provides the health and medical response under FEMA’s Federal response plan. We also manage

the national disaster medical system. NDMS is a partnership between DHHS, DOD, FEMA, the Department of Veterans Affairs

and 7,000 private citizens across the country who volunteer their

time and expertise as members of the response teams in order to

provide medical and support care to disaster victims in more than

2,000 participating non-Federal hospitals.

Our primary response capability is organizing teams such as Disaster Medical Assistance Teams, specialty medical teams such as

burn, pediatric and disaster/mortuary teams. Our 27 Level 1

DMAT’s can be Federalized and ready to deploy within hours and

can be self-sufficient on the scene for 72 hours. This means that

they carry their own water, portable generators, pharmaceuticals

and medical supplies, cots, tents, communications and other mission-essential equipment.

Our mortuary teams can assist local medical examiner’s offices

during disasters or in the aftermath of an airline or other transportation accident when called in by the National Transportation Safety Board.

Since October 1999, OEP has deployed to the Virgin Islands and

Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Lenny and along the entire East Coast of the United States following Hurricane Floyd.

Our mortuary teams and management support teams have deployed to Rhode Island and California to assist local the coroner’s

offices after airline crashes. We have supported local and Federal

efforts during special events, such as the World Trade Organization

meeting in Seattle and the State of the Union Address in Washington, DC.

When there is a natural disaster and the President declares an

emergency, FEMA will task DHHS to provide critical health care,

medical support, social services or any public health or medical

service that may be needed in the affected area.

OEP, as the Secretary’s action agent, will mobilize NDMS, the

Public Health Service Commissional Corps Readiness Force and

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other Federal agencies such as CDC, the Indian Health Service,

DOD and VA to assist in providing critical health care services.

During a terrorist event or even when a credible threat has been

made, the FBI is the lead Federal agency in charge of crisis management. DHHS provides technical assistance to the FBI during all

phases of the threat assessment and will frequently station a liaison at FBI’s Strategic Operations Center.

If a terrorist event does occur, FEMA becomes the lead Federal

agency in charge of consequence management, and in a natural disaster FEMA would request DHHS to provide necessary health,

medical and health-related services to the victims.

OEP’s national medical response teams can provide medical

treatment after a chemical or biological terrorist event. They are

fully deployable to sites anywhere in the country with a cache of

specialized pharmaceuticals to treat up to 5,000 patients. The

teams have specialized personal protective equipment, detection devices and patient decontamination capability.

We are working on a number of fronts to assist local area hospitals and medical practitioners to effectively deal with the effects

of a terrorist act. In FY–95, DHHS began developing the first prototype metropolitan medical response system. These systems,

which are components of local city systems, would be called in to

provide triage, medical treatment and patient decontamination.

The city systems that we have been developing would then be

able to transport clean patients to hospitals or other medical facilities for continued care.

Hospitals are developing procedures to ensure that patients coming in would be decontaminated before entering the facility. To

date, OEP has contracted with 47 of the Nation’s largest metropolitan areas for MMRS development and will initiate an additional 25

contracts this year.

We are also in the process of renovating the former Noble Army

Hospital at Fort McClellan, AL to be used to train doctors, nurses,

paramedics and emergency medical technicians to recognize and

treat patients with chemical exposures. In this way, we can train

hospital staff and other medical responders from around the country to treat victims of terrorism. And this, Mr. Chairman, kind of

falls in line as a way of helping the first responders in some of the

things we’ve heard today.

The Department of Health and Human Services is committed to

assuring that our citizens have access to medical care during disasters. We are prepared to quickly mobilize the professionals required

to respond to a disaster anywhere in the United States and its territories and assist local medical response systems in dealing with

extraordinary situations, including meeting the unique challenge of

responding to the health and medical effects of terrorism.

Mr. Chairman, that concludes my remarks. I’d be pleased to answer any questions.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Mr. Moore.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Moore follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Stroech.

STATEMENT OF KENNETH STROECH, DEPUTY EMERGENCY

COORDINATOR, CHEMICAL EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS &

PREVENTION OFFICE, U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

AGENCY

Mr. STROECH. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Tierney. I’m

Ken Stroech, Deputy Emergency Coordinator for EPA in Washington. My office supports the Federal Anti-Terrorism Program of

helping State and local responders prepare and plan for emergencies involving oil and hazardous materials, pollutants or contaminants. These include chemical, biological and radiological materials that could be components of weapons of mass destruction.

My office is also responsible for Section 112(r) of the Risk Management Program of the Clean Air Act and Federal implementation

of several sections of the Emergency Planning and Community

Right to Know.

Within our office we implement the Domestic Emergency Response Program. Along with the U.S. Coast Guard, EPA implements the national response system, the safety net created to back

up local and State first responders during hazardous materials and

oil emergencies. These same individuals are being trained under

the Federal Domestic Preparedness Program.

This program dovetails right in with the Federal response plan

that was mentioned earlier for these kind of events.

EPA has a long-standing mandated responsibility to prepare for

and respond to emergencies, including oil, hazardous substances,

pollutants or contaminants. The President through the Presidential

Decision Directives also gave EPA responsibility for some additional anti-terrorism activities. EPA assists the FBI in determining

what sort of hazardous substances may be or have been released

in a terrorist incident. And following an incident, EPA can assist

with environmental monitoring, sampling, decontamination efforts

and long-term site cleanup.

EPA is currently focuses its efforts internally in five key areas;

health and safety training for its responders, program coordination

with other Federal, State and local partners, preparedness and predeployment of EPA assets for special events, State, local and Federal training and exercises and procurement and maintenance of

analytical equipment for WMD consequences management.

Since 1986, Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know

Act has required every community to develop an emergency plan

that prepares for accidental releases of extremely hazardous substances and, should one occur, makes provisions for rapid responses

to protect the community.

These existing plans which are developed by Local Emergency

Planning Committees, or LEPC’s, should be updated to incorporate

planning response to deliberate chemical releases by a terrorist of

terrorist group.

EPA helps provide leadership and assistance to communities to

ensure that they get the expertise they need to respond to deliberate chemical releases. EPA helped to develop the First Responder

Training Program required under Nunn, Luger, Domenici legislaVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:04 May 24, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00144 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\68547.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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tion which will be providing training to the 120 largest cities in the

United States.

Local Emergency Planning Committees, such as the one in

Bridgeport, are critical to the success of Community Right to Know

and play a vital role in helping the public, emergency responders

and others understand chemical information and what to do if a

WMD incident were to occur.

During the last decade, the LEPC’s have continued to expand

their role and take on new responsibility. EPA knows that many

LEPC’s already are incorporating planning and response to deliberate chemical releases into their emergency plans. And they’re expanding the scope to consider those kind of things.

Because of the public’s knowledge about the local role in preparing for and responding to emergencies involving chemicals and biological agents, they could be a component of a weapon of mass destruction. We believe that members of the public seeking information about these hazards in their communities would seek that information and advice from their LEPC’s.

The national response system is the cornerstone of the national

effort to prepare for and respond to hazardous materials incidents.

EPA shares a leadership role with the U.S. Coast Guard, with the

agency having leadership for the inland zones and the Coast Guard

in the coastal zones.

The system is accessed 24 hours a day through the National Response Center and is the primary Federal contact point for companies to report all accidental oil and chemical, biological and etiological discharges that could result from an accidental or intentional release.

The Center contacts various Federal agencies, including EPA’s

Regional Emergency Spill Lines that are on duty to activate Federal on-scene coordinators. Federal OSC’s evaluate the need for

Federal response and coordinate Federal efforts with the local response community.

OSC’s would be key members of a unified command at the WMD

incident, also. They can call upon a variety of specialized equipment and highly trained personnel, including the environmental response team, the radiological emergency response team, the U.S.

Coast Guard strike teams, the National Enforcement Investigation

Center and other assets.

What can we do to improve Federal support? As terrorism

threats continue to rise in our Nation, EPA recognizes the need to

expand and strengthen our national response system to assist our

State and local partners. We should build on this 30-year-old system that has local, State and Federal components.

We believe that strengthening our current relationship with

State and local responders on WMD planning, outreach and preparedness issues will translate into a faster, more efficient response to terrorist threats and incidents. Enhanced training and

response capabilities at the State and local level are key to improving anti-terrorism response.

By increasing the number of exercises such as the one that took

place Friday, we can expect to see fewer injuries and deaths among

first responders. Such activities need strong Federal support and

resources.

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Because of existing laws and regulations for response and its relations with State and local responders, EPA will undoubtedly be

called upon to respond to WMD incidents, also. However, it is crucial to remember that we may not know in advance that what appears to be an accidental hazardous material incident may, in fact,

be an intentional WMD incident.

And if EPA’s responders are not adequately prepared to respond

to the growing threat of terrorism, the lives and safety of its responders are also at risk.

To enhance WMD training, equipment and resources, EPA needs

some additional resources. Over the past several years, EPA has allocated resources from within the agency to help meet the demands

brought on by increased WMD preparedness, particularly to assure

the safety of its responders.

In conclusion, EPA continues to work with our Federal, State

and local partners on cross-cutting issues involving WMD to ensure

the safety of communities.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and the committee, for the opportunity to testify. I’d be glad to try to answer any questions.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Stroech follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. I first would like to thank all of our panelists and

this panel as well for really trying to stay within the 5-minute

framework because I know there’s a lot more that could be said.

I’d like to ask the first question this round and just ask—I feel

like what I’m hearing is the way the book says we should operate

and how we should do it. I would love some real candid comments

about where the biggest challenges are. I mean we know how we

want it work. But when you’ve seen this—and, for instance, Mr.

Baughman, in your statement you talked about these exercises

when properly planned. So I gather that sometimes they’re not always properly planned. It was at page 4 of your statement.

Mr. BAUGHMAN. Right.

Mr. SHAYS. So let me just ask you to share with me where you

think the biggest challenge is.

Mr. BAUGHMAN. I think there are a number of challenges. First

off, I think one is with the agencies that you see up here, minus

the FBI, we work time after time after time together. We have

planning forums both at our regional offices and our headquarters

offices to better integrate our operations.

Introducing the Bureau has been new to the process. And I think

that there is some confusion as to the role of the Bureau and I

heard some of the comments this morning, that the Joint Operations Center is a command post. It is not. It’s a Joint Operations

Center so that the normal mechanisms that we normally use to

interface with State and local government continue to operate the

way they have. However, that Joint Operations Center is there to

make sure that we’re not stepping on another’s toes or not duplicating efforts. It’s not a command relationship.

When we provide assets to a local jurisdiction, we operate under

their local incident commander. We are a resource provider, just

like the State of Connecticut said that we were.

However, what we’ve found at major operations, like Oklahoma

City, is in many cases the local jurisdiction is not adequately

trained to operate in an interagency environment. They have a

great fire chief down there, great police chief. They’re not used to

working with multiple State agencies and multiple Federal agencies on a major incident. So I think that there is some additional

training in multi-agency incident management that is required.

And the incident command system allows for this. I just think that

we need to focus more of our training efforts on that particular

area.

Mr. SHAYS. All right. Thank you.

Mr. Burnham.

Mr. BURNHAM. Yes. I agree with——

Mr. SHAYS. Just keeping talking. It will come on.

Mr. BURNHAM. I agree with that. I hate to be redundant here,

but one of the things I did here on Friday, too, was—and I think

you were there, Congressman Shays, when one of the speakers toward the end said he wasn’t sure in the first few hours what the

role of the FBI was. And, again, it goes to what Mr. Baughman was

just talking about.

It’s the integration of the ICS system into the fact that it’s not

necessarily in the few hours it’s not going to be just FBI. The incident commander is going to be the police chief, the fire, police, the

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haz/mat. And recognizing that we’re not in charge at that point.

We’re not in charge. All we do is we’re going to roll in. We’re going

to have a liaison in that command post, recognizing that there’s no

implication of Federal jurisdiction yet.

And I think the more we exercise these, the more we go around

the country doing these—I was an Assistant Special Agent charged

in the Memphis office and we did it in both Nashville and Memphis. And I think the benefit—and we saw it on Friday. The benefit

of doing that is when we did have an incident, I knew who the

chief of police was. I knew who the fire department was. I knew

who the haz/mat people were. That’s probably one of the best

things that we’ve done in the last years has been doing that.

But I think getting everyone to recognize that ICS and the Federal system can work together—and it is going to work together.

It isn’t a concept of operations plans now. And I can get you a copy

of the concept of operations plans. But when we did those, as

Bruce—as Mr. Baughman knows, we went around the country and

took a lot of input from -.

Mr. SHAYS. You were just showing off when you called him Bruce

just to give me a feeling that you guys really work closely

together——

Mr. BAUGHMAN. We do.

Mr. SHAYS [continuing]. And you’re bonded and all that. OK. I’m

very impressed.

Mr. BURNHAM. Can you believe FEMA and the FBI?

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Thank you.

Mr. BURNHAM. Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. General, I’m seeking now those areas where, you

know, we want it to work well but we don’t see it work as well.

General LAWLOR. I think—I think the biggest issue that I see is

the whole question of interagency cooperation and how we do that.

And we’re working in a very complex system. When we look at the

Federal way of doing business, you share power vertically between

the Federal Government and the State and the local governments

and also horizontally, at least at the Federal level. We are sharing

power across multiple agencies in responding to this particular

kind of incident. And so what—I’m sorry.

Mr. SHAYS. No. No. Continue. I’m sorry.

General LAWLOR. What we—what we encounter is that there is—

just the process of bringing all of that together into a synchronized

and unified response is difficult. And it’s the kind of thing that requires exercises. It requires a lot of coordination. And, frankly, the

communication piece that has grown over the course of the past

year I think has been very important.

And I think I can say without fear of contradiction that all of us

sort of have been on panels before. The same faces tend to surface

time and again in these things. And I think that’s good. I think

that’s very good.

Mr. SHAYS. Just—is it easier—I’m not looking for a long answer

here. But is it easier for there to be greater cooperation within the

Federal Government as opposed to going down the levels? In other

words, is there more practice in the Federal level, in your judgment?

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General LAWLOR. I think it’s an education issue, sir. I think that

within the Federal interagency system we understand a little better that we do have to work all of these various levers in order to

make it work. Whereas, at the State and local systems, there might

not quite be that familiarity with how we do it at the Federal level.

So I think it’s really an issue of education.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. Thank you, General.

Mr. Moore, from HHS’ perspective, where are the biggest challenges? Where does the system not work the way the textbook says

it should?

Mr. MOORE. Mr. Chairman, I think that where we’ve run into the

biggest problems in deploying our teams is the fact that there’s still

a myth there that when the Federal Government comes in to an

incident, that possibly we are going to take over, we’re going to be

in charge, we’re going to run things. And through training that

we’ve gone through with FEMA and others to try to correct this,

we’ve been able to—not everyone in this country, but a lot of

places—been able to convince them that they’ve got to be prepared

to receive us because we work for them. They’re the boss. They’re

the ones that are going to be giving us instructions.

Mr. SHAYS. So you guys have done sensitivity training on how to

approach local and State governments?

Mr. MOORE. You bet we have. Well, I was a State employee for

a number of years before I came here. And I can tell you some stories about the Federal Government coming in that we used to—I

used to see on the other side.

Mr. SHAYS. Oh, that’s great.

Mr. MOORE. We’ve been very pro-active in trying to convince the

folks that we’re here to work for them and not to tell them what

to do. And one of the problems we’ve had when we go in and them

not accepting this right off the bat is that they don’t have an echelon of response for the resources that we bring in and we all get

together and work it out. But it’s getting better.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much.

And from DEP’s perspec—EPA’s perspective?

Mr. STROECH. Mr. Chairman, I’d say it’s a continuing education

process to, as you heard described, a complex system of agencies

and plans and whatever. I’m reminded of when the earthquake

planning process really picked up considerably in this country in

the late 80’s. And the Federal response plan then was called the

Federal Earthquake Plan. How taking this 12 or 13 different agencies and trying to put them into one umbrella to work together at

first it was a little tough going. But over a period of years now

working together and under that Federal system, that umbrella

now works.

I think the new challenges that have been brought on with law

enforcement agencies working closely with the agencies working in

consequence management, we’re working through those kinds of

educational processes of what each other do and do best and how

to bring all these assets together, understanding that the locals are

in charge. The Federal Government is here to support that system.

I think somewhat resources are also a challenge in some areas.

There simply probably isn’t enough money in the U.S. Treasury to

put all the equipment and all the training and all the exercises in

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all the potential places in this country that a terrorist event could

happen. So we have to try make the most we can. We have to try

to dual-use our resources and continue to work at it. It’s a very

positive attitude, I think, amongst all the players.

Mr. SHAYS. I’ll just make an observation and then I’ll turn it to

Mr. Tierney. It used to be that business, the large consumed the

small in the private sector. That was the fear. And now it’s the

small—it’s the fast beats the slow. And so you can have—and so

I’m just wondering if there’s analogies here with who gets there

first, who is really there and so on.

I’m also—I haven’t thought about this before. But I wonder if

there’s more empathy and more understanding between a Federal/

State law enforcement going vertically, whether they—since they’re

all in the law enforcement field, whether they have this greater

sense of ‘‘Well, I know your challenge and you know mine’’ versus— and the same with Health. I mean I—one of the things I’m really

struck with in the health area is that in this mix probably—I have

some sympathy with the view that probably the local health departments are not viewed the same way in terms of their important

role. And I wonder if it’s the same on the State level and even on

the Federal level. And I just wonder if there doesn’t need to be a

little more emphasis on this area.

So, Mr. Tierney, you have the floor.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

Mr. Moore, you were telling us about the national medical response teams. And I think you may have mentioned how many of

these teams exist. But I don’t recall hearing it.

Mr. MOORE. Yes, sir. We have 4NMRTS, 27 Level 1 DMAT

teams. We have eight Level 2 teams, which our Level 2 teams are

used to support and augment our Level 1 teams.

Mr. TIERNEY. OK. And how long would it take to mobilize the

team?

Mr. MOORE. It usually takes about 4 hours to get them to a location, to be transported. That’s the time we can call them up and

get them out.

Mr. TIERNEY. And that’s regardless of traffic congestion or anything else that—— Mr. MOORE. That’s been an average that we’ve had, about 4

hours.

Mr. TIERNEY. OK. Mr. Burnham, you also mentioned ongoing efforts at the FBI to develop assessments of the threats in the area

that we might face. What methodology do you use for those assessments?

Mr. BURNHAM. One of the things we’ve—we just—in fact, tomorrow is the first day for a regional meeting. I mentioned in my

statement that we did take part and put together a threat and risk

assessment in conjunction with the Office of Emergency Management. I’m going to say Florida, California and two other States

which I can’t recall now.

But the methodologies that we use—in that particular one, the

threat assessment that was done, it was recognizing this would

also be used by a lot of non-law enforcement. So we basically used

a lot—what are identified by numbers. First of all, the potential facilities, potential groups, the likelihood that these particular groups

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would take action, recognizing that a lot of the particular localities

are going to—and, again, the whole idea behind it was equipmentdriven because our threat and risk assessment was mandated by

Congress. It was rolled into Office of Justice program’s national

threat assessment tool kit.

So recognizing that there may be a tendency by some jurisdictions to puff up a little exactly what the threat element was, there

was sort of a checks and balances. When it will come back to the

State level with our WMD coordinators, we would look at what

they have. But that was just a first step.

We are looking at—General Accounting Office last fall did mention the fact that there should be—it’s done internationally. But

there should be a domestic threat and risk assessment for chemical

and biological weapons. And recommended that the FBI do it.

We haven’t been tasked with it yet. But we fully anticipate it.

And at that time, we’ll develop better methodologies.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

I really have no other questions. I just want to make the comment of thanking all the members of this panel and the previous

panels.

And, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you. Again, this is an enlightening hearing. We oftentimes hear testimony that’s scattered

nationwide. I think it had a particularly good focus today to bring

it in to one locale and to see how it actually worked. And Friday’s

exercise juxtaposed with the questions that we had today and the

incident we had today were extremely helpful. So I thank you, Mr.

Chairman, and I thank all of the people that testified today.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank all of you.

Is there any comment that you would want to make before we— I’m just going to ask the group to come together for about 5 to 10

minutes just to talk about the RAID team because I want to kind

of close the loop there.

But is there any other closing comment you’d want to make?

OK. Thank you very much.

Mr. SHAYS. General, if you didn’t mind staying just for the RAID

team dialog?

General LAWLOR. Yes, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. It may be that we don’t need your input, but it would

be nice if you could just stay.

I would thank you all. And what we’ll do is I’ll just call—anyone

else who was going to come—General, anyone you want to come

with you, I’ll swear them in and—good. We’ll quickly do it.

We’ll identify to the recorder who you are, too, just so—if you

have a card or so on?

I think we can close the loop pretty quickly.

Mr. Lawlor has been sworn and General Cugno has been sworn.

Excuse me. General Lawlor and General Cugno have been sworn

in.

But if you could stand up? And we’ll identify you afterwards.

OK?

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

OK. Would you—the three who have joined this panel, if you’d

just identify yourselves just so we have it on the record?

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Mr. GIBB. Yes. My name is Paul Gibb. I’m a lead planning analyst with the State Office of Emergency Management.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

Mr. WILTSE. John Wiltse, director of the Connecticut Office of

Emergency Management.

Lieutenant Colonel DALEY. Lieutenant Colonel Jay Daley. I’m the

commander of the First Civil Support Detachment out of Natick,

MA.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. I’m going to just make this comment and then

just see if you agree. I think the comment that, General Cugno,

that basically I think I’m hearing you saying is that whatever the

RAID team does, if they could do it in an hour instead of 4 hours,

there’s going to be a big advantage. And—— General CUGNO. That’s correct.

Mr. SHAYS. And so then I’d just like to know kind of what that

advantage is. And I realize I’m not having anyone here have to advocate that RAID team locally. I just want to understand a little

more clearly what triggers a RAID team and, you know, think of

it in those timeframes. OK?

General CUGNO. Yes, sir. I think to address your question, I

thought there’s a couple of ways that we can do it.

Mr. SHAYS. Sure.

General CUGNO. One of them is Colonel Daley, as the Commander, can talk and clearly define the difference in training and

qualifications, et cetera. And—— Mr. SHAYS. That would be good to do that.

General CUGNO. So we can do that. That’s one.

Second, like any organization that has a State of readiness that’s

waiting to respond, they also have another mission. And you’ve

heard a lot about that. And that’s to the first responders and it’s

providing training. Many of their individuals on his staff are

missioned to provide training to first responders. So it’s not like it’s

idle time.

Third, one thing that I want to clear up, earlier we heard other

labs within the State, this duplication—I use the Environmental

Protection. They do not have the same capability as this lab. And

I think that the Colonel also could address that.

And then the response time, I think it would be wise for him to

also—between the Office of Emergency Management, if you have

questions and how it relates to them, specifically to the exercise,

they can address that, either Paul or——

Mr. SHAYS. I’ll tell you the framework we’re working. We have

12 minutes and I’m going to hit the gavel and we’re going to adjourn. So let’s go for it.

General CUGNO. I’d like to turn it over to the good Colonel.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much.

Lieutenant Colonel DALEY. So I guess response first, possible

protocol for response?

Mr. SHAYS. Yes.

Lieutenant Colonel DALEY. Incident occurs, as it did Friday in

Bridgeport. And based on our relationships with first responder in

the area or with the State or with the Adjutant General of Connecticut, we could be alerted immediately if there was any hint of

a possible WMD scenario.

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If we were in the unit at that time, which we would have been,

10:30 a.m., it would take us all of the drive time to get down here

to Bridgeport.

Now, you can factor that against having a team in-state. If you

had a team that was that much closer versus Natick, MA, wherever that team would be located, much quicker. So that may clear

up the response piece.

On the technical expertise or the capabilities of the unit, not only

do we have the ability to do onsite analysis and verification of what

you’re dealing with, but we also have the communications equipment that you see to your left which provides a capability to the

Incident Commander en route from a distance or actually at the

site. And it has a reach-back capability to a consortium of expertise

in the Federal Government and in other States where information

would be acquired to verify or to do further analysis on what you

might be dealing with.

Mr. SHAYS. And local police and local fire could use that—— Lieutenant Colonel DALEY. Yes, sir. Through our chain of command.

Mr. SHAYS. Right.

Lieutenant Colonel DALEY. That also has a secure network capability. So you can talk in a secret and/or top secret mode if you had

to, which does not exist in any incident command system with the

Federal Government. So you would be able to acquire information

that would not be available, again, en route from a distance away

or right at the incident site.

There is other expertise in the unit. We have a medical team

which can work with the medial system to provide advice on patient care and appropriate response beyond just the initial portion

of the mission. And then also the mobile analytical lab which has

the capability to do chemical analysis, bio analysis and radiological

analysis. So confirmatory analysis onsite. So you can bring the lab

to the site versus what tends to be the standard now, take a sample to a location a distance away from the incident and do that confirmatory analysis.

And we have the technical expertise on the team to do that,

drawn from the Guard. I mean there’s a wide range of capabilities,

personnel capabilities, in the Guard. An analogy I used for General

Cugno in the other room, Sergeant Kittridge who sits in the back

of the room, she’s our recon NCO in charge of our haz/mat team,

Senior NCO. She’s also a registered nurse.

We have a nuclear medical science officer who is on the team.

He’s a chemical officer. He’s a microbiologist. So we have that type

of expertise on the team that can provide advice and assistance beyond just the haz/mat entry. That’s only one piece of our mission.

And as General Cugno alluded to, if we’re working with the first

responders on a day-to-day basis, training with them, that’s beneficial to them. Because I’ve heard throughout the discussion today

the need for more training, the need for more up-close expertise

working with the communities. That’s another role as kind of

apostolates of the WMD concept that we can bring to this picture,

not just in the event that a response happens.

I mean I imagine I’ll command the unit for 3 or 4 years. I hope

an event never happens during my command. But I would like to

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be able to prepare the communities, harden the target, so that

maybe we lessen the possibility of that event.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Thank you.

General.

General CUGNO. Yes, sir. I’d like to ask General Lawlor for some

comments on it. General Lawlor was responsible in the DOMS office when they stood these up and has a background in

institution—— Mr. SHAYS. OK. That’s why we wanted him on the panel. Thank

you.

General LAWLOR. Mr. Chairman, two things. As you have heard

today from the first responders, there were two primary concerns.

One is communications and the other is the ability to identify the

agent involved.

When we stood up the CST’s, that was our intent was to provide

those two capabilities at least down to the State level, recognizing

that perhaps it was prohibitive in terms of cost to provide it to everyone.

These teams are designed to provide those two capabilities, communications and identification, detection of the agent. And I think

it is probably a disservice to them to emphasize the time at which

they respond to the site because as we look at these incidents as

they develop, those two capabilities, we believe, are going to be required for some period of time at the site, not just the first hour,

not just the first 4 hours. Those capabilities are going to be required for days.

And let me give you an example, sir. During the course of an

event as one of these things begins to develop, there will be extensive requirements for communications back to the experts that

Colonel Daley has discussed with you. There will be extensive requirements for interoperability to enable the various jurisdictions

to talk to each other.

The van over there provides that communications capability. And

that capability will be on-site 12 hours, 24 hours, 36 hours into the

incident.

The second thing that we think is very important is that while

there is clearly an understanding that there needs to be early identification of the agent, at one of these incident sites we expect that

there will be concern about other sites within the area. In other

words, there will be a release. And the one thing that we found

from all of the—certainly from the Sirin gas incident in Tokyo is

what we call the worried well, as I’m sure you’re familiar. There’s

not only the worried well, there is the whole issue of people calling

in and saying, ‘‘Now I have something. I’m smelling something in

the vicinity of 1st and 2nd Streets and we don’t know what it is.’’

Mr. SHAYS. Some could be real and some couldn’t. But where

does the plume go?

General LAWLOR. Where does it go and who has the capability

to go to that second site and say it is or it isn’t?

Mr. SHAYS. OK.

General LAWLOR. And that’s another capability that these teams

bring.

Mr. TIERNEY. Just going back on a question here, you’re talking

about having one in every State. But that may not necessarily be

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the solution you’re looking to. I suspect you’re looking to have areas

covered. And certainly within a State, you may not be able to get

to another part of your State as easily as you can to some place

in an adjacent State. So you’re really looking at trying to map this

out so that you have teams strategically located so that they can

have decent response time no matter where they go. Or do you

really think that you can resolve this just by putting one in each

State?

General CUGNO. My opinion is one in-state as a minimum. And

I think—if there was need to—California has two right now, obviously, because of its size. But I think at least one per State is necessary.

It’s necessary for another reason. And I think it goes back to my

testimony saying that the ultimate responsibility lies with the Governor. In all of the operations that we’ve heard between incident

management and crisis management, clearly the responsibility for

the actions up front are with the incident commander and, as the

issue turns to the coordination with the law enforcement agencies

and crisis management rolls on, all the way through that local government, meaning the State, is represented there because they

have the ability to transition and prioritize assets within the State

and direct them forward to the front.

For that same reason, you can take the RAID team or the support element and you can move that to the front immediately. My

position, working for the Governor, the Connecticut Guard here is

a ready, available asset resurged to go forward only helps the first

responders.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

General CUGNO. Yes, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. Do either of you want to just add a point here?

General CUGNO. If you have questions, they were here for——

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Fine. OK.

I think we’ve, you know, closed the loop on that. I think it’s—

obviously, when you drive from New York to Buffalo, I think it’s

450 miles. There’s logic that New York would need more than one.

But at a minimum, I would agree with your point that each

State——

General CUGNO. Yes, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank all of you and appreciate your comments.

And I learned a heck of a lot. Very valuable.

And I would—before concluding, I would just like to thank—I’d

like to sound our—sound? I’d like to thank our sound system person, Joe Pascarella—is that——

Mr. PASCARELLI. Pascarelli.

Mr. SHAYS. Pascarelli. And H.B. Group, New Haven. You’ve done

an excellent job.

In this modern day and age, the thing we seem to have the most

trouble with is our sound equipment. And it worked beautifully

today.

And our recorder, Mr. Ross, Roderic Ross, Post Reporting Service. Thank you very much.

And the Armory staff generally. Your people here have done a

wonderful job.

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And I’d like to thank my staff, Karen Churest and also Larry

Halloran and David Rapallo on our staff in Washington.

It’s been a very interesting hearing. And I’m really happy that

we had it. Thank you.

This hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 1:28 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

[Additional information submitted for the hearing record follows:]

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