BY BILL MANNING
Political survival is governed by public perception. Public perception is more powerful than the truth. Control public perception and you live, politically speaking. Lose control of it, and you die.
By and large, the American public perceives that its emergency responders are ready for the next terrorist attack. It is an illusion the Bush Administration (or any Administration, for that matter) would not dispel for the obvious political reasons. For most Americans, you see the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and a five-year, $27 billion federal package overall for emergency response measures, and you’re happy.
The fire service and, I daresay, other critical service components in the emergency response community know better. The gap between our current level of both basic and advanced preparedness and what’s actually required nationwide is enormous. That message has not reached the American public, until now.
A new report from the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), a high-powered think tank on world political affairs, describes in plain English and plain numbers what firefighters have known for years prior to September 11, 2001: Our deficiencies in terrorism response preparedness present a grave national risk.
As a CFR press release explains, the report, Emergency Responders: Drastically Underfunded, Dangerously Unprepared, “marks the first time that data from emergency responder communities has been brought together to estimate national needs.” The distinguished task force assembled for this project, chaired by former U.S. Senator Warren Rudman, presents some extraordinary but hardly surprising conclusions: Fire departments have only enough radios to equip half of on-duty personnel and enough SCBA for one-third of all firefighters. Only 10 percent of fire departments can respond to a building collapse with the appropriate level of staffing, training, and equipment. The federal government, the report says, needs to triple its spending—to $98.4 billion over five years—to bring the emergency response community up to speed in terrorism response. That figure includes an estimated $36.8 billion over five years for fire service haz-mat equipment and training and another $15.2 billion to beef up local fire department USAR capabilities as well as enhance the FEMA USAR teams.
Emergency Responders cites lack of preparedness standards (essential to getting a grip on what “preparedness” really is and its contingent costs), a politicized congressional appropriations process at the federal level, and bureaucratic red tape at all levels of government as the major obstacles toward the goal of formidable emergency response preparedness.
The Bush Administration has criticized the report, saying the budget estimates are “overinflated.” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge went so far as to joke, “I think the [Council on Foreign Relations] would like to install gold-plated telephones.” Makes you wonder. Probably not what you’d expect from the head of Homeland Security on an issue of such national importance.
But the bottom line is this: For the fire service and other services that figure into the terrorism response equation, you’ve just been handed the key that you’ve been waiting for for so long, and it’s time to open the door. Every firefighter in America should be waving this report at their elected officials in Washington. And fire service leaders should seek a coalition with the other emergency service entities to rally the public and lobby Washington to accelerate the frontline preparedness process—one that’s going much too slowly in light of the stark reality that terrorists won’t wait until we’re ready to strike. It’s time to blow the lid off the emergency preparedness illusion once and for all.
I encourage you to get a copy of Emergency Responders: Drastically Underfunded, Dangerously Unprepared at www.cfr.org as well as the June 29 transcript of “Meet the Press,” in which Tim Russert interviews Rudman and Dr. Jamie Metzl, at www.msnbc.com.
THE DESECRATION OF GROUND ZERO
Meanwhile, a task force of another kind is threatening to move forward with plans to build a bus terminal at bedrock within the bathtub wall at World Trade Center Ground Zero—directly on the spot where thousands of bodies and body parts were found. Many of those belonged to your murdered fire service brothers.
The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC), a high-powered commission created shortly after 9/11 by New York Governor George Pataki and then New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani to lead the World Trade Center redevelopment and memorial effort, is practicing a form of institutionalized atrocity that threatens sacred ground belonging to all Americans. They must be stopped.
For the LMDC, pushing WTC redevelopment ahead at breakneck speed, financial interests supersede the profound significance of the site. Even Giuliani has spoken out publicly against the LMDC plans and its callous disregard of sacred ground.
Please turn to page 64 in this issue and read the letter from former New York City Firefighter Lee Ielpi, a member of the Coalition of 9-11 Families, who lost his son that day, and take action against this insult to the memories of 3,000 innocent victims. Ground Zero belongs to all Americans—not to a group of elite land developers—just as Gettysburg, Pearl Harbor, and the site of the Oklahoma City Bombing belong to all Americans. They are part of our history, our pathos, and our soul and should be treated as such for all generations, for all time.
