Madison Mayor Sue Bauman was among roughly 200 mayors from across the nation to gather in Washington, D.C. last Wednesday and Thursday for a summit regarding safety and security issues.
Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, FBI Director Robert Mueller, and Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson addressed summit attendees. Participants drafted a plan aimed at strengthening emergency response plans in their respective cities.
The National Action Plan includes provisions to fully federalize airport security and increase the amount of law enforcement involved in both border and port security.
Upon returning from Washington, D.C., Bauman stressed that Madison residents have nothing to fear.
“Our community is safe. We are prepared for emergencies,” Bauman said at a Friday news conference. “The city and Dane County have been gearing up. In fact, we are ahead of most cities in terms of readiness.”
While Bauman boasted of Madison’s readiness to deal with terrorism, she also underscored the importance of reinforcing existing security measures.
“We can not sit back complacent,” she said.
Bauman emphasized the significance of local vigilance and preparedness.
“First responders are on the local level,” Bauman said.
Local officials are stockpiling a reserve of drugs as one preventative measure against bioterrorism. City officials announced Friday that out of $400,000 in federal grant money given to Madison for medical emergency response, $130,000 will go towards pharmaceuticals in the form of approximately 40,000 pills.
Over 90 percent of those drugs are used specifically to prevent persons exposed to a disease from actually contracting the disease. The rest will be utilized to treat people diagnosed with specific illnesses. The remainder of the grant will be used to equip and train emergency workers, Fire Chief Debra Amesqua said.
Other local measures include increased surveillance of Madison’s water supply. David Denig-Chakroff, manager of the Madison Water Utility, said all security measures for the water supply have been reviewed and intensified, and response plans are in place in the event of the water’s contamination.
“We are prepared to respond to any incident,” he said. Chakroff also said Madison’s water supply is especially difficult to contaminate, due to the fact that it lies hundreds of feet below the ground.
While airplane hijackings and bioterrorism remain potent threats, Bauman said perhaps the nation and Madison’s greatest vulnerability is a fixation on only a few forms of terrorism. She said Madison’s emergency response units need to be more flexible.
“Right now, the nation is focused on airplane security and biological threats, but we need to also consider the possibility of threats from other forms of terrorism,” Bauman said.
Bauman also said the measures proposed by the National Action Plan need to be implemented carefully, so as not to infringe upon freedoms.
“An appropriate balance needs to be found to ensure the safety and security of our communities, while maintaining just what it is we are protecting ? our civil liberties,” Bauman said.
