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Lafayette will host a forum on bioterrorism preparedness for elected officials and emergency first responders in the greater Lehigh Valley (Lehigh, Northampton, and Berks counties) and Warren County, N.J., today and tomorrow.
Conducted by Lafayette’s Robert B. and Helen S. Meyner Center for the Study of State and Local Government, the event will focus on training, funding, risk communication, and liability. It will feature keynote talks by Peter F. Verga, special assistant for homeland security, U.S. Department of Defense, and Keith Martin, director of Pennsylvania’s Office of Homeland Security.
Speakers and panelists also will include Pennsylvania State Representative Bob Freeman; John Comey, executive assistant to the director of Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA); Barbara Stader of the Allentown Department of Health; Terry Clancy of the New Jersey State Department of Health and Senior Services; Nick Tylenda, coordinator of Northampton County’s Division of Emergency Management; Tom Nervine of PEMA; Tom Barnowski of Northampton Community College; and Sergeant Joseph Geleta of the New Jersey State Police.
The forum will begin at 5 p.m. today with a reception, dinner, and keynote talk by Verga in the Bergethon Room, Marquis Hall. Tomorrow, events will run 8:15 a.m.-5:15 p.m. in the Marlo Room, Farinon College Center. Martin will speak at a 12:30 p.m. luncheon Saturday. (Locations are subject to change.)
“Local elected officials have the key responsibility for preparedness and for managing responses to any terrorist incident,” says Diane Elliott, the Meyner Center’s associate director for public service. “Ultimately, our elected officials, together with the citizens in this region, need to determine the level of bioterrorism risk we face in our region and the level of preparedness we should support.”
John Kincaid, director of the Meyner Center, says the center’s recent survey of fire, EMS, police, and other first responder organizations in Berks, Lehigh, Northampton, and Warren Counties indicates the region is not well prepared to respond to terrorism, especially bioterrorism.
“Nearly two-thirds (63 percent) of the region’s first responders reported a low level of preparedness for a bioterrorist attack,” Kincaid says. “The region is better prepared for a non-biological terrorist attack, but only moderately prepared, according to more than half (55 percent) of the survey’s respondents.”
Conducted by the Meyner Center in January and February, the survey found that bioterrorism has not become a new or high budget priority since September 11, 2001.
“Little has been spent preparing for bioterrorism,” says Kincaid, “and first responders say they are not receiving adequate financial help from the state and federal governments. Consequently, not much equipment has been purchased for bioterrorism responses, and there have been few practice drills.”
However, the survey found that most first-responder organizations have educated personnel and improved communications since September 11, 2001. More than half of these organizations also have implemented joint-response programs with other agencies and communities. “The joint-response programs are reported to be successful,” Kincaid says.
According to the survey, most first-responder organizations have good relations with the state and federal governments in terms of information and interagency cooperation. More than half of the region’s responders said that both state and federal agencies have given them education, information and technical assistance.
At the same time, the survey found that 60 percent of the first responders believe that the possibility of a significant terrorist incident involving 200 or more victims in the Lehigh-Warren region is low. Far more (69 percent) believe there is a moderate to very high possibility that the region will need to respond to people fleeing here from a terrorist attack nearby, such as in New York City or Philadelphia. First responders in Warren County reported the highest possibility of such in-flight, followed by responders in Northampton County.
“Even if our region is a second responder,” said Kincaid, “helping people who flee from bioterrorism elsewhere, and containing any contagions, would strain our resources and present virtually all of the same challenges as responding to a direct attack.”